re: In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are

quote:

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Many of them were Americans. Nearly half of the surveillance files, a strikingly high proportion, contained names, e-mail addresses or other details that the NSA marked as belonging to U.S. citizens or residents. NSA analysts masked, or “minimized,” more than 65,000 such references to protect Americans’ privacy, but The Post found nearly 900 additional e-mail addresses, unmasked in the files, that could be strongly linked to U.S. citizens or U.S.residents.

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This is highly relevant because the minimization applied is analyst-specific. The "backdoor queries" that the FBI, CIA, etc. are allowed to do on the dragnet databases are unminimized. (We know this from the declassified Bates FISC decision as well as the declassified compliance reviews.)