If one is investigating leaks, what would be the purpose of only tracking
phone numbers and not phone conversations? You can bet these conversations were recorded.
per homeland security, they have all the phone conversations. everybody, everywhere. given the information that the phone records provide, I bet they sure has hell could find out about the calls contents.
One possibility would be analysis: who is talking to whom and in what sequences are these conversations happening? Are there White House supporters talking to congress? Who is leaning on whom? Does the White House or their party need to focus efforts to chastise or woo any of their own? Who is the weak link in the opposition? Who are the sources propagating the calls in the opposition? Etc...
So, I speculate this could help the unscrupulous even without hearing the actual conversations...maybe use some imagination based on this:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3019994/posts
They sought the phone records after the fact. There was no way they could be tapped.
Most likely. I wonder if they only went after internal calls between staffers or all calls including constituent calls.