&gt;<i>They said the government should disclose how much American content the N.S.A. collects incidentally ...</i><p>The NSA&#x27;s lawyers have twisted the definition of &quot;collection&quot; to mean the accessing of information already present in storage. By any reasonable definition of the word, they already collect virtually everything they can on Americans. Not just metadata, but full content—everything.<p>Asking the NSA to disclose incidental collection on Americans would only reveal incidental <i>access</i> to Americans&#x27; information in context of foreign-targeted operations.