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better-dead-than-fed
06-23-2013, 08:42 PM
The law, since 1979, has permitted the government to collect metadata without a warrant. Metadata are certain phone and email records. In Smith v. Maryland (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3033726127475530815), the Supreme Court held that:

the privacy of metadata is not "legitimately expectable"; and
metadata-collection by the government is not a "search" under the 4th Amendment, and so it requires no warrant.

The government is invoking Smith to justify their sweeping collection of metadata. On June 13, FBI Director Mueller "told the House Judiciary Committee... that... the Supreme Court found people have no reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to phone-call metadata." (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/14/191822828/source-obama-considering-releasing-nsa-court-order)

Unwanted Supreme Court rulings can be overcome by any number of means, of which the least controversial is Amendment to the Constitution. The 4th Amendment could be Amended to clarify that metadata-privacy is "legitimately expectable", and that metadata-collection is a "search" requiring a warrant. Until then, the Supreme Court has had the last word under the Constitution.

http://ablogonpolitics.blogspot.com/2013/06/metadata-and-4th-amendment.html

Anti Federalist
06-23-2013, 08:51 PM
The law, since 1979, has permitted the government to collect metadata without a warrant. Metadata are certain phone and email records. In Smith v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that:
•the privacy of metadata is not "legitimately expectable"; and
•metadata-collection by the government is not a "search" under the 4th Amendment, and so it requires no warrant.

Fuck a bunch of SCROTUS.