I heard the same thing. His position is that there is a common sense definition of "relevant" that they did not define in the law, and that the NSA would be cool and only look at what they needed.
EDIT: A quote.
>What Congress intended and what I intended is that the target had to be a foreign national and not a U.S. person. He would be targeted, and then they would find out who that person was calling, both in the United States and elsewhere, rather than grabbing all of the phone information and working backwards to the target. The relevant standard was intended to limit what NSA could do. They took the position that it expanded it. And that tips the commonsense definition of relevance on its head.
I heard the same thing. His position is that there is a common sense definition of "relevant" that they did not define in the law, and that the NSA would be cool and only look at what they needed.
EDIT: A quote.
>What Congress intended and what I intended is that the target had to be a foreign national and not a U.S. person. He would be targeted, and then they would find out who that person was calling, both in the United States and elsewhere, rather than grabbing all of the phone information and working backwards to the target. The relevant standard was intended to limit what NSA could do. They took the position that it expanded it. And that tips the commonsense definition of relevance on its head.