The New York Times says the memo is most likely the legal basis for the CIA‘s voluntary agreement with AT&T, which allows the agency to search its massive database of international calls (and tip local numbers to the FBI for further investigation). And it‘s not as if this secret memo is the only tool the government has for demanding data. The FBI may have abandoned „exigent letters“ but it‘s still using National Security Letters to obtain data without a court order. (No mention is made of the FBI‘s exigent Post-It notes or over-the-shoulder database searches.)