Let's Be Clear, say Legal Experts, What NSA Is Doing Is 'Criminal'

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71. None of this is new.

"AT&’s internet traffic in San Francisco runs through fiber-optic cables at an AT&T facility located at 611 Folsom Street in San Francisco. Using a device called a “splitter” a complete copy of the internet traffic that AT&T receives – email, web browsing requests, and other electronic communications sent to or from the customers of AT&T’s WorldNet Internet service from people who use another internet service provider – is diverted onto a separate fiber-optic cable which is connected to a room, known as the SG-3 room, which is controlled by the NSA. The other copy of the traffic continues onto the internet to its destination.

The SG-3 room was created under the supervision of the NSA, and contains powerful computer equipment connecting to separate networks. This equipment is
designed to analyze communications at high speed, and can be programmed to review and select out the contents and traffic patterns of communications according to user-defined rules. Only personnel with NSA clearances – people assisting or acting on behalf of the NSA – have access to this room.

AT&T’s deployment of NSA-controlled surveillance capability apparently involves considerably more locations than would be required to catch only international traffic. The evidence of the San Francisco room is consistent with an overall national AT&T deployment to from 15 to 20 similar sites, possibly more. This implies that a substantial fraction, probably well over half, of AT&T’s purely domestic traffic was diverted to the NSA. At the same time, the equipment in the room is well suited to the capture and analysis of large volumes of data for purposes of surveillance."

https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/presskit/ATT_onepager.pdf‎

This is based on the sworn declarations of two men who worked there.

https://www.eff.org/ja/document/marcus-declaration
https://www.eff.org/ja/document/klein-declaration

AT&T was one provider; besides Verizon there evidence the NSA approached every major US communications provider with a similar request. It's not proof, it's strong evidence.

Let's make this easier - what is it about the NYTimes article referenced in OP that you find lacking? I'm assuming you disagree with their conclusions:

"Even in the fearful time when the Patriot Act was enacted, in October 2001, lawmakers never contemplated that Section 215 would be used for phone metadata, or for mass surveillance of any sort. Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican and one of the architects of the Patriot Act, and a man not known as a civil libertarian, has said that “Congress intended to allow the intelligence communities to access targeted information for specific investigations.” The N.S.A.’s demand for information about every American’s phone calls isn’t “targeted” at all — it’s a dragnet. “How can every call that every American makes or receives be relevant to a specific investigation?” Mr. Sensenbrenner has asked. The answer is simple: It’s not. "