I liked the article, but the part i found most interesting was the comment.

I just want to point out a flaw in your individual count calculation. Although normal person would have just 40 contacts you forget that some of us call very common number and that lets NSA to connect even more people that 19mil. Even I never met this article author, we are probably connected in less than 3 hops :). If I called Verizon support and author called Verizon support, we are connected. And if some suspect called Verizon support, our phone call history is in that “corporate store” where NSA can query any way they want :). You are absolutely right – evil is in details…

so this is a huge loophole. i think every one i know and people i don't have called verizon or comcast. so if someone that is a foreigner makes a call to verizon or comcast, i am now able to be collected on? welcome to the party everyone. i'm in a terrorist bin at the NSA.

EDIT: also, i was just thinking: if i want to track someone and all i have is the phone number, why can't i just have someone i know that's overseas call them once? they are now able to be tracked. isn't that a flaw to the system? there is no way this kind of power can be contained.