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> They don't need a warrant to view email headers or emails that are more than 6 months old.

Interesting you say that, because in the article you linked, it says this:

> In order to comply with government search warrants on user data

Can you explain this discrepancy?

Read these for more information on the six months rule. It's rather ridiculous and I didn't believe it when I first heard about it.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/10/ecpa-turns-twenty-f... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stored_Communications_Act

Okay, but how does this make Google incapable of saying they didn't know the NSA had direct access to their data?

Because they, and the other companies who used the exact same terminology, never said what they meant by "direct."

You'll have to really connect the dots for me here, I guess I'm just not getting how the 6 month rule has anything to do with the meaning of "direct".

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