Also, I'd like to point out that the fisa courts do not limit anything. They are a rubber stamp, that never rejects anything.
> 534 million records of phone calls and text messages
But we don't know how that breaks down to "phones" as you say. I don't even like to use my phone but I bet if you count my texts and calls in a year it would be in the 1000s of records.
No I don't believe that there are "500 million phones going to suspected terrorists in the US" but there may be 500 messages from individuals who have suspected connections to terrorists and foreign agents. And you would never know for sure unless you can look at their metadata to analyze those suspected connections.
You're right that the FISA approval rate is incredible. But it's still a record of requests made (which helps prevent abuse). and as I understand it that number of requests is only in the ~2000 range.
Again, it's a much better situation than the level of scrutiny you're holding to companies like Google/Facebook/Microsoft or ISPs. And those companies aren't even offering national security as a service.
I guess if you just make 1 fisa request that says "give me everything" then that's good enough, right?
At least with those other companies I have a choice to use them or not. If I don't like Google I can use duck duck go, or something else.
The government doesn't give me a choice of whether I am spied on or not.
Keep in mind that they need court ordered approval to access the data so without that existing context it's off limits.
You should be more concerned with what your service providers and companies like Google or Facebook are doing with that data because they aren't limited by FISA courts.