LET'S SAY I BECOME AN NSA SUSPECT

Let's also say that I have regular contact with 10 other phone numbers.  According to testimony by an NSA official:

“The court has approved us to go out two or three ‘hops,’ ” NSA Deputy Director John C. Inglis said. “And it’s often at the second hop” that information is gained that leads the FBI to investigate the person’s contacts further.
A “hop” refers to the way in which analysts broaden their analysis. When analysts think they have cause to suspect an individual, they will look at everyone that person has contacted, called the first hop away from the target. Then, in a series of exponential ripples, they look at everyone all those secondary people communicated with. And from that pool, they look at everyone those tertiary people contacted. This is called a second and a third hop.

Let's further assume that I have the average number of phone number contacts. That would mean on average that there are 10 x 10 x 10 (1000) phone numbers in the maximum NSA search based on my phone number.  If there are on average 40 contacts, then the total is 40 cubed == 64,000.  An AP writer thinks there would be 2,560,000 but that would be a 4th hop.