[1morepassword]

Direct access is only the "most extreme possible interpretation" to a technocrat.

For all ordinary people, i.e., most of the world outside HN, the "access" part is the element that constitutes the scandal. "Direct" merely hints at the method, of which the details are considerably less relevant to most people than they are to us.

If the NSA had received the data via flash drives attached to carrier pigeons it wouldn't have made any difference to the core of the story.

It definitely doesn't make the story "a lie", at least not to anyone else but lawyers and techies.