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

[JDPriestly]

76. What the US says about this program has been contradicted by several

whistleblowers. I am more inclined to believe the whistleblowers. They have more to lose by telling the truth.

I don't think that the government is telling us the truth about the program. Russell Tice says that he held the papers in his hand for checking phone numbers for President Obama in 2004 and also at some point for Alito. He just has trouble if he lies.

Snowden also states that the program is not as limited as the government is claiming. And what is the point in getting information from so many internet services that are mostly in the US? Or is there a program that covers the rest of the world and could capture our information?

As for the claim that this program is legal, the court order and the guidelines I saw were very, very comprehensive. The case law concerns only the issue of the admissibility of evidence obtained of pen registers and determines that obtaining the pen registers in individual cases in which a crime was committed and a pen register obtained, was legal.

The cases do not deal with the many other constitutional issues that a program of this size and magnitude raises like the collection of metadata of journalists. Obama stated that they are collecting metadata. Then they get a subpoena for more information. But the metadata reveals a journalist's sources or the people a lawyer consults in preparing a case. The only reason people aren't upset is that they aren't journalists or lawyers. The mechanic down the block is not likely to have any need to worry about who studies the metadata revealed by his phone and internet connections. But if that mechanic needs to defend himself in court, he might want his lawyer to be able to call an expert that will not be used in court without the government knowing who was called.