That, coupled with the fact that they only require 51% certainty in the foreignness factor makes me think this is intentionally designed to make every single person they come across a subject to surveillance.
I can see Weasel terms like "use of storage media seized outside of the U.s." be extended to mean pretty much anything.
Interesting, so everyone who ever hit a MegaUpload link is potentially a foreign entity?
For instance, need data from a server's hard drive? Accuse someone you know who has data on that server, not necessarily the data you want, to have an excuse to seize said hard drive and analyze it. Nope, turns out the accusation was incorrect, here's the hard drive back. Ah, is getting other data not covered by the warrant illegal? It just might be, but you can't complain if you don't know they did it and you probably don't have standing to sue over it to find out. Plus with authorities able to get double-secret warrants based on triple-super-secret laws issued by not-so-secret courts with "you can't even admit you were here" secret proceedings, how would anyone know in the first place?
Remember, government agents have the authority to lie to you in an effort to complete their goals.
Not that I'm saying the NSA was behind MegaUpload or anything, just saying it's feasible.
Just to be clear, Kim Dotcom was a NZ resident, and had broken no NZ laws.
At this point it would be a bold man who made the claim that the NSA had nothing to do with investigating a foreign person and/or their company, tracking that company's international internet usage, monitoring their involvement in possible illegal activities and providing that information to US authorities who could use it to reach out across the world and attempt to have that person extradited to the US.
In fact, I cannot understand for a second why you are trying to make that claim?
That then provides an audit trail, where something, or more likely, nothing is done to check that decision was valid,.
Foreignness factor:
The person has stated that he is located outside the U.S.
Human intelligence source indicates person is located outside the U.s.
The person is a user of storage media seized outside the U.s.
Foreign govt indicates that the person is located outside the U.s.
Phone number country code indicates the person is located outside the U.s.
Phone number is registered in a country other than the U.S.
SIGINT reporting confirms person is located outside the U.S.
Open source information indicates person is located outside the U.s.
Network, machine or tech info indicates person is located outside the U.s.
In direct contact w/ tgt overseas no info to show proposed tgt in U.S.
It's quite easy to lose the protections of a U.S. citizen indeed!