Dear mother of Gawd, I am tired of arguing with rocks

[intaglio]

50. To obtain probable cause you examine published information

Now it may strike you as strange or newfangled but publishing is just putting information out there into the public sphere.

You do not own the phone line between you and the person you are calling, so to set up that connection you have to ask your phone company to connect you. To do this they will mostly have to go via other service providers all of whom will have access to your phone number and the number you are calling. Your act of dialing is an act of making public certain information.

This information is recorded by the phone company to resolve not just your billing but also the billing received by your company from those other providers. It is this information the NSA wishes to access and does not contain cash information or the content of the call.

Now this may not fit your idea of what is right but it is where the law currently stands. You may be quite right in wanting a change to the law or Constitution but you cannot go round bemoaning the illegality of those actions when, as the law now stands, it is not illegal.

Personally I find it difficult to conceive of how the law might be changed to reflect your desire without making the provision of phone services and internet connectivity impossible.