&gt; I heard about those taps in 2008&#x2F;2009<p>Back then the excuse was that they were only being used to collect foreign traffic. Snowden revealed their loose interpretation of &quot;foreign&quot; and many more domestic activities happening outside of AT&amp;T NOCs.<p>Foreigners&#x27; rights aren&#x27;t protected by the constitution. Citizens&#x27; are and now we have legal standing to force the government to respect the law which we didn&#x27;t have before knowing that the panopticon was pointed at us.