From the US Constitution:
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
From a newswire story:
“It is hereby ordered that the custodian of records [of Verizon Business Services] shall produce to the National Security Agency (NSA) upon service of this order, and continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order, unless otherwise ordered by the court, an electronic copy of the following tangible things: all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls….This authorization expires on the 19th day of July, 2013…”
– Order signed by Roger Vinson, a judge of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, on April 25, in the text leaked to The Guardian newspaper and published by it on June 5.
Ladies and gentleman of the jury, I
submit to you: is the latter permitted under the former? I believe
the answer to be sufficiently obvious as to not require elaboration.
The NSA's defense is that the content
of said calls were not monitored, only its existence. I do not see an
exception listed in Amendment IV that seizure is OK, as long as its
contents are not read, do you? I also wish to point out that, since
the NSA operates under an umbrella of total secrecy for “national
security”, other Constitutional violations could easily be
occurring, Congressional oversight not withstanding.
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