Has the Feinstein article proven they do store actual content of phone calls or what?

[leveymg]

7. Yes, they keep content. That was shown on a NSA slide released weeks ago. Let's look at that:

Compare Feinstein's OpEd to the language the President used in describing the way the Sec. 702 system works.

Sen. Feinstein: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/senate-intelligence-committee-chair-reform-nsa-programs/2013/07/30/9b66d9f2-f93a-11e2-8e84-c56731a202fb_story.html?hpid=z3

When the NSA learns of a number used by a terrorist connected to al-Qaeda, it can search its database of phone records.

Only 22 highly vetted NSA analysts can approve a query of this database — and only when they have a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the number is connected to terrorism.

If the NSA analyst believes that circumstances justify the need to know the actual content of the call to probe further into what may be an active terrorist plot, the numbers are sent to the FBI, which requests a warrant from the court that oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Ultimately, this court determines if “probable cause” is sufficient to grant the warrant to collect the content of the call.

Obama’s Misleading Statement to Charlie Rose: “There is no content in that database”

The President's interview with Rose is excerpted at length, below: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023050432

Program 215, (the President) said gets data from the service providers like a Verizon in bulk, and basically call pairs.

"You have my telephone number connecting with your telephone number. There are no names. There is no content in that database. All it is, is the number pairs, when those calls took place, how long they took place. So that database is sitting there," he said.

"Now, if the NSA through some other sources, maybe through the FBI, maybe through a tip that went to the CIA, maybe through the NYPD. Get a number that where there's a reasonable, articulable suspicion that this might involve foreign terrorist activity related to al-Qaeda and some other international terrorist actors.

Then, what the NSA can do is it can query that database to see did this number pop up? Did they make any other calls? And if they did, those calls will be spit out. A report will be produced. It will be turned over to the FBI. At no point is any content revealed because there's no content," Obama explained.

We now see that the President's statement is, at the least, misleading, if not confused: "There is no content in that database."

In fact, both parts – content and metadata - go through a single NSA database, and the NSA slide show that.

I think what Obama did there was conflate the Sec.702 system (PRISM) with one small part of that database, MARINA (voice) and MAINWAY (email), where metadata is stored. Voice content, meanwhile, goes to NUCLEON, below.

The slides that came out today describe a profiling system that NSA analysts can use -- XKEYSCORE, see, http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3378381 -- the data from XKEYSCORE is likely that referenced in the previously released slide (below) as "DNI Content," and that is the data the analyst can access at the profiling (Target Acquisition) stage in order to determine whether to pass the case over to the FBI for a FISA warrant. Once the the NSA managers determine a suspect should be targeted, that DNI Content in turn goes into the PINWALE database for further analysis.