That slide has been interpreted as the government directly tapping into company servers to retrieve whatever information the government wants. The Washington Post, which
also filed an extensive expose of the program (perhaps more extensive), said the agencies were "tapping directly into the central servers." Fogel has a problem with this language; his analysis of the slide indicates that what's actually going on isn't so much companies handing over keys to their servers, but companies creating a private digital locked box in which the government can access data they've requested through legal means.
Fogel writes: "The crucial question is: Are online service companies giving the government fully automated access to their data, without any opportunity for review or intervention by company lawyers?"
The New York Times,
in their own investigation, found that this locked box concept is probably what's going on here. The government uses FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (the statute that specifies how and in what manner the government can obtain data), to demand information, and instead of the companies handing it over in individual chunks, the government requested these locked boxes so the handoff of information could be efficient and secure. It's sort of the internet-age equivalent of a source meeting a handler on back-to-back park benches and exchanging manila file folders while never looking at each other. These requests, by the way, are legally binding and also come with a gag order preventing the companies from discussing them.
life is fraught with peril my friends...
