In theory. In practice if they want to get you they'll use parallel construction.

Agreed. Considering this is coming so longer after the Snowden revelations I have to believe it means some sort of Plan B has been sorted out and Congress has gotten the okay to outlaw what is soon to be obsolete.

Yes. The cynic in me immediately concluded after reading the headline: "then either the UK's or Australia's hoovering apparatus is finally up to spec, and the NSA can get the data from them".

Yes. I'm presuming there's some sort of off-shore component to Plan B. It's not illegal if you're outside the law.

You're depending on undefined behavior of the term "you".

For example, if "you" means the singular poster then you are correct and your comment is a truism.

However, if "you" means the citizenry then the cost of parallel construction at scale clearly exceeds the cost of using the mass collection program currently under discussion.

Edit: clarification

That may have been true at one point ... but is that still the case now? What about 5-10 years from now, with additional IoT devices.