They look at full email bodies. For many years, they treated email older than 180 days as "Abandonded". They could collect and read these full emails (not just metadata) because they weren't private data but "abandoned". Every sends emails and they stay in their Sent Items for 180+ days, so that means every email everyone sent.
This was true for many years, until recently that was disallowed.
There are a ton of exceptions where they can see your full data. They just use an exception, like the abandonded email exception.
I doubt they've changed that much from their days in Room 641A copying literally every bit that passed over AT&T's network. They could take the contents of everything that isn't encrypted going over the wire in real time then and I don't expect they've backed off since.
How do you know this? My understanding is that the agencies will try not to submit anything to the FISA court that they know will be rejected as it would be a wasteful use of time and money.
HashThis|6 years ago
This was true for many years, until recently that was disallowed.
There are a ton of exceptions where they can see your full data. They just use an exception, like the abandonded email exception.
autoexec|6 years ago
ceejayoz|6 years ago
jermaustin1|6 years ago
jonnybgood|6 years ago
How do you know this? My understanding is that the agencies will try not to submit anything to the FISA court that they know will be rejected as it would be a wasteful use of time and money.