But It's Only Metadata

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an ongoing lawsuit in pursuit of a FOIA request of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) ruling that held NSA's data gathering violates the 4th amendment. Obama is just plain lying when he maintains that the courts and congress act as a check on NSA. The entire congress has not been briefed on the Verizon phone records dragnet nor has it been advised about the latest intrusion into privacy, Prism. Members of the intelligence committees in both houses may be briefed but they are forbidden to share information even when they oppose an NSA/FBI action.
Worse yet when a FISC court holds an action to be unconstitutional the decision is classified and not available to the public. This is the nature of EFF's suit. Show us the court decision. Secret courts and secret decisions do little to safeguard anyone except the perpetrators of abuse from criminal and civil liability. If, as the administration claims, no one is listening to your conversation why should you worry. EFF gives these examples;

What they are trying to say is that disclosure of metadata—the details about phone calls, without the actual voice—isn't a big deal, not something for Americans to get upset about if the government knows. Let's take a closer look at what they are saying:

• They know you rang a phone sex service at 2:24 am and spoke for 18 minutes. But they don't know what you talked about.
• They know you called the suicide prevention hotline from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the topic of the call remains a secret.
• They know you spoke with an HIV testing service, then your doctor, then your health insurance company in the same hour. But they don't know what was discussed.
• They know you received a call from the local NRA office while it was having a campaign against gun legislation, and then called your senators and congressional representatives immediately after. But the content of those calls remains safe from government intrusion.
• They know you called a gynecologist, spoke for a half hour, and then called the local Planned Parenthood's number later that day. But nobody knows what you spoke about.