I understand "direct access" to be the conflation of 2 different things: the first is the FISA-stamped requests to private companies for their records, and the

I understand "direct access" to be the conflation of 2 different things: the first is the FISA-stamped requests to private companies for their records, and the second is the intercepts of data transmitted over the internet or phone networks by being listening in on the wires/radio-waves themselves (raw SIGINT). This seems overly schematic, however, and I would welcome corrections.