Comment by WestCoastJustin

Steve Gibson suggests [1] that direct access means, direct access to their internet pipes, effectively tapping or mirroring their content for analysis. He says that "direct access" has more meaning to non-techies than saying they "are listening at the upstream router". Very interesting podcast too. The $20 million per collection point, is to build the secure secret rooms [2] at their [google, facebook, apple, microsoft, etc] telecom providers, slip the fibers, and for all the gear they need to do it. He even suggests this is legal, since it is the open internet and anyone is allowed to peer into the traffic, since this is not actually in any of their [google, facebook, apple, microsoft, etc] data centers, but at the peering level.

[1] http://twit.tv/show/security-now/408

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A