I don't really agree with the whole thing but it sort of makes sense and the headline is quite mis-leading. The violation of privacy supposedly would occur when they go do the research to figure out the answer to the question. The "saying" is irrelevant.
I completely agree. There are two important points here. First, they don't currently know the answer to the question, so they would have to figure it out, probably by examining a bunch of the conversations to identify who is and who is not a US Citizen. That examination would mean violating the privacy of US Citizens. (Collection does not equal examination.) Second, the wording in the article is a bit misleading. The article says that the NSA "won't" give this information to the Senators. Technically, that is true, but it would probably be more accurate (and less inflammatory) to say that they "can't" provide the information. Won't and Can't imply very different intentions. I'm not saying it is right/acceptable that this info is not known, just saying that the way the article is written is a bit misleading.
