NSA: Since Metadata is usually attached/embedded in Content, what is the procedure to separate it?

[jmowreader]

8. In telephony, the metadata never really sees the content

If you have a landline, your phone is hooked to a wire that runs to a dial central office - a place that automatically connects up to 10,000 telephones to each other and to long-distance phone circuits. Inside the DCO is equipment collectively known as switchgear.

Switchgear has long been able to generate a listing of the numbers each of its lines calls, and how long the calls last. This is how they generated a long-distance telephone bill back in the days before they had "unlimited nationwide calling" plans. (Those plans came about not because the phone company was being generous but because it's cheaper to just charge you $30 a month and let you talk all you want than it is to meter every telephone call.)

Cell phone switches can do the same thing, but cell phones aren't hardwired to a node in a relay rack the way a landline is.

The switchgear metering file is the "metadata" everyone's talking about...so, in essence, the entire world has gone apeshit because NSA is reading your phone bill.