Gregory Clark:

The surprising thing about the National Security Agency spy scandal reports oozing out of Washington is that people are surprised.

Kelly Burdick:

Is it possible that these people just weren’t paying attention?

Professor Ed Felton:

It is not surprising, then, that intelligence and law enforcement agencies often turn first to metadata. Examining metadata is generally more cost-effective than analyzing content.

September, 2003:

Section 215 is one of the surprising lightning rods of the Patriot Act, engendering more protest, lawsuits, and congressional amendments than any other.

The DOJ argued to Congress that 215 is no big deal, since grand juries could always subpoena private records in the past.

To be sure, the ACLU is doing a bit of fearmongering when it says the DOJ can rifle through your records if they don't like what you're reading. If you're a U.S. citizen and not otherwise suspicious, you're probably safe, so long as all you do is read.

DOJ: 2007 - from A Review of the FBI's Use of Section 215 Orders (emphasis mine)

This standard, referred to as the relevance standard, permits the FBI to seek information concerning persons not necessarily under investigation but who are connected in some way to a person or entity under investigation...

As part of this review, Congress directed the OIG to identify "any noteworthy facts or circumstances concerning the use of business records requests, including any illegal or improper use of the authority..."

In the second instance of improper use, the FBI inadvertently collected certain telephone numbers pursuant to a pen register/trap and trace order because the telephone company did not advise the FBI that the target had discontinued using the telephone line until several weeks after the fact. The FBI identified the improperly collected information, removed it from its databases, and provided it to OIPR.

DOJ: 2013

Unlike ordinary criminal investigations, the sort of national security investigations with which Section 215 is concerned often have a remarkable breadth—spanning long periods of time, multiple geographic regions, and numerous individuals, whose identities are often unknown to the intelligence community at the outset. The investigative tools needed to combat th... [ Read More (0.5k in body) ]