Can the NSA conduct wiretaps without explicitly asking for phone records?
Yes. It’s hardly a secret that the NSA specializes in electronic surveillance, called communications intelligence in the vernacular of spies. Author James Bamford’s 1982 book “The Puzzle Palace” documented how the NSA created hundreds of “intercept stations”–ultrasophisticated, hypersensitive radio receivers designed to pluck both military signals and civilian telephone calls out of the air.
