This was based on a verbal conversation at Interop with someone from uunet, from whom the tapes are purchased. I or they could be mis[led|informed|remembering], but if you really care, ask uunet.
Having just spoken to someone who contracts at the NSA (and no, this name I will not post), he does not believe they get such a beast, although, as many people have pointed out, the FBI did. That, then, would be the origin of that, along with some TLA confusion. Actually, the most alarming revelation here could be that someone at uunet is going around casually disclosing information about their customers. A lot of people perceive the government as having neither a right nor a need to privacy. Certainly there are also quite a few who label themselves "privacy advocates" whose standards do a 180 when the privacy involved is that of the likes of Mykotronx... andrew