That's their position, yes, and was even the position Mueller gave in the unclassified briefing right before the Senator told him there was a conflict in what w

That's their position, yes, and was even the position Mueller gave in the unclassified briefing right before the Senator told him there was a conflict in what was said. I suspect that in the classified briefing the Senator was told something to the effect that phone calls are recorded without a warrant, possibly even that an analyst could flag someone's phone number to be recorded. Presumably whoever was giving the brief failed to make clear that the analyst would need a warrant to listen to the call, as I didn't see in the linked article a direct mention that the analyst could listen, only "tap in". IMHO this would still run afoul of wiretapping law but certainly the difference between "collect" and "analyze" is an area where NSA has been pushing the boundaries between what is "search and seizure" and what is everything else, so it is at least consistent with their other information collection programs.