&gt; foreigners&#x27; data<p>That&#x27;s commonly assumed, but it&#x27;s not quite accurate. It&#x27;s not about &quot;data originating from foreigner&quot;. Instead, the criteria[1] is &quot;foreign data&quot; or &quot;data that traveled over a foreign connection&quot;. It&#x27;s not the <i>person</i> that must be foreign, but the data <i>or</i> specific wire on which it travels.<p>Several sources have explained how the NSA captures domestic data when it travels internationally, such email (gmail) that is stored or processed at a foreign data center. This probably allows almost any data to be captured with some clever packet re-routing.<p>[1] this may be from one of the infamous &quot;new interpretations&quot; of FISA&#x2F;etc