Yes, that sounds right, except that I think it really is relevant that one party was a U.S. citizen.

There are strict laws against the U.S. government surveilling U.S. citizens without a warrant. By using FISA information gathered through warrantless foreign surveillance, the FBI appeared to be taking a backdoor around those laws.

FISA stands for “Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.” By definition, it’s only supposed to be used in the surveillance of people foreign to the U.S.A. The FBI’s job is domestic law enforcement. It’s the FBI’s job to investigate crime involving U.S. citizens.

Officially, the NSA does not spy on U.S. citizens. You can believe whatever you want about whether it actually “unofficially” does, but unless you do a lot of business overseas, chances are high that Google and Amazon and Facebook all have collected way more personal information about you than the NSA has.

Even if the NSA does surveil U.S. citizens, it can’t use any information it obtains in any legal or political way, or in any otherwise public manner.

If a U.S. citizen has communications with a foreigner, however, it is possible that those communications will be surveilled. The NSA does spy on foreign citizens, just like foreign intelligence agencies spy on U.S. citizens. If you’re a U.S. citizen communicating with a foreigner who’s being surveilled, then your communications with that person are going to be surveilled as well.

But again, it’s not the FBI’s job to police international crime – that’s the job of the CIA. As the article describes, this is why it is a bad idea for the FBI to be using FISA intelligence. This is why “it’s a problem when they do it to Americans.”

Yes, yes, and yes. Seeing a movie in a theater offers a distinct experience in two main ways:

The first concerns the experience of losing some self-awareness as you “get into” a movie and devote your focus to what’s happening on the screen. This experience different when it happens in unfamiliar surroundings than when it happens on your living room couch. Losing yourself to a film’s narrative in a public place feels different than doing so at home.

Second, the experience of watching a movie together with strangers is different from watching it alone. You’ll hear people who you don’t know laugh when you laugh, and sometimes when you don’t. You’ll also hear people who you don’t know cough, slurp sodas and crunch popcorn, and sometimes even comment or heckle. A full theater adds a communal aspect, as the mood of the audience as-a-whole affects the experience for each individual audience member.

I’m so old I remember when going to the movie theater was literally the only way to see the movie. I’ve been in all circumstances: alone, on a date, with a group; in empty theaters and in packed ones. Going to see a movie by yourself and ending up the only person in the theater can also be a good experience, and is still very different from watching alone at home.

After you’ve tried going to the cinema a few times, you might look for a (now rare) opportunity to see a movie at a drive-in. It’s a weird juxtaposition of the theater experience with the private home experience that also becomes something more all its own.