Yes, either the slides are wrong, and they don't mean "direct access" the way we're thinking about it, and they may be referring to those "lock boxes" or those "secure FTP" connections that the companies use to send them the requested data - or they've managed to hack these companies somehow, and they just aren't aware of it. This is assuming the companies didn't allow them to put backdoors on their servers.

Either way, the tapping of cables is bad enough.