[drivebyacct2]

I've sorta been saying this for a while. Earlier on my G+, but also here.

>(which I suspect were simply the dates that the companies brought up infrastructure to be able to quickly and easily comply with FISA warrants. Which means "direct access" is true, but it also means that "we were forced to make it easy to give the government what they want as soon as they need it")

This telling of the tale fits with pretty much what everyone said. The form-fill denials are true and make sense. The governments repeated references to FISA make sense, and it gives them a way to justify their legality.

The rest of the article is great for those cough that keep saying "FISA warrants" as if the warrants part means anything.

I mean, the API for this automated "Takeout [NSA style]" would be super easy. I can imagine it. And all the quirks in the spec. "Check the FISA warrant ID (or don't, it's just a mocked interface that returns true, same result as the court records)", etc.