It think the 'direct access' issue is an irrelevant distraction for most of the Guardian's readers since NSA don't need any kind of warrant to access the data o

It think the 'direct access' issue is an irrelevant distraction for most of the Guardian's readers since NSA don't need any kind of warrant to access the data of non-US persons. For non-US users what is the meaningful difference between 'direct access' and a system that just approves every NSA request? I would ask: how many requests for data on non-US persons has Google denied? They want to give the impression that they fight requests on behalf of their users, but I have trouble imagining how that would actually work. In my mind it goes more like this: NSA> We need all the emails for the non-US user of account jihadi_joe@gmail.com Google> We can see that user has a non-US IP but what evidence do you have against that user? NSA> That is classified. Hand over the data. Google> Okily-dokily.