NSA phone surveillance program likely unconstitutional, federal judge rules
I have mixed feelings about this.<p>Some of the metadata in my opinion is obviously OK to collect - the stuff that would have been captured by a pen register decades ago - Who you called, who called you, how long you talked - this stuff, which is otherwise known as call detail records it available to nearly everyone who works for the telco and is not really what I would consider private.<p>Other stuff - like Geolocation data is in my opinion clearly not OK to collect - it constitutes an unreasonable encroachment on privacy, normally to track someone historically a warrant must be obtained first, and it required probable cause, I see no reason why a lesser standard should be applied here.<p>I don't consider blanket recording of calls to be acceptable, but I don't see that as something that has been happening, at least on domestic to domestic endpoints (it's not really technically feasible to do with the way the telephone network is structured), its a bit easier to record calls going to international endpoints because of the structure of the PSTN - VoIP is its own deal, and YMMV on weather you can actually capture those calls or not.<p>I don't want to see us throw the baby out with the bath water as it were, nor do I want the unreasonable encroachment on privacy to continue.