An Unwarranted (But Not Warrantless) Invasion of Privacy

The Guardian reports that the NSA has been collecting data on all phone calls placed through Verizon:

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

Based on the timing this appears to be in response to the Boston Marathon bombings, which took place on April 15th. At that time it wasn't clear whether the Tsarnaevs were acting alone. Given that, it's likely that all carriers are providing the NSA this data; the other court orders simply haven't been leaked yet.

While this total surveillance of everyone all the time is ethically and morally wrong, it isn't illegal, thanks to the Patriot Act that the Bush administration rammed through Congress. That wasn't good enough for George W. Bush, who broke the law and simply issued an executive order for the NSA to conduct domestic surveillance of Americans without warrants from FISA.

People like Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have long been warning against this kind of government surveillance, and they opposed the Bush administration when after 9/11 Republicans used the fear of terrorism to arrogate themselves unlimited surveillance powers.

Republicans are sure to pile on Obama with this. Which is totally ridiculous, because the NSA is acting completely within the laws that Republicans crammed down our throats. Republicans did this, in part, because men like Karl Rove had fooled themselves into thinking that they would have a permanent Republican majority and could never be dislodged from power again. Presidents, when they're Republicans, should have unlimited executive power, but when Democrats exercise that exact same latitude it's an abomination.

If Mitt Romney's NSA had been caught doing this Republicans would be falling over themselves telling us how absolutely necessary this was to protect ourselves from the likes of the Tsarnaev brothers and another Boston bombing. They would be saying, "better safe than sorry," and "you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette."

But even at their worst, the Democrats are still bloody amateurs at privacy invasion compared to the professional Republican lawbreakers who never bothered with FISA in the first place.