“intercepting”
That is the key word, he is playing “legal weasel word” games.
Intercept does not mean that they do not have copies of the emails and phone conversations. It certainly does.
Only to point this out. The Guardian, who put the whole piece out in plain view (a liberal British newspaper)...probably didn’t accidentally discover this.
The timing of this...a week prior to the President hosting the Chinese Premier out in Palm Springs...is suspect. The number one topic at the meeting...was to be cyber warfare.
You can imagine the Chinese guy sitting there and grinning as the topic comes up. He says to the President....’you know....we only spy on countries of a potential threat, who gather privacy data against Chinese citizens’, and the President will be kicking himself.
After that lousy meeting ends, then the President has tour the G8 conference in Northern Ireland. Wonder what the number topic will be in private discussions there? Privacy concerns of the Europeans perhaps.
And finally, a stop in Berlin, to give a speech to a crowd of 100,000 people. Stopping off and giving interviews to German reporters? Don’t count on it....privacy questions will arise.
This was all timed. Whether it was the Chinese, WikiLeaks, the KGB, or disgruntled NSA folks. The Guardian didn’t accidentally find this out.
They don’t have time to listen to all the conversations - but the software used to ‘make connections’ gives a much clearer picture. Plus if they do need to pinpoint a conversation they can pull it up in seconds.