I heard Rush yesterday sticking up for the concept of meta data collection. Apparently, someone convinced him that’s all the NSA was collecting.
Logic indicate that when the ability to gather front-end and back-end ‘book keeping data’ exists along with over capable storage capacity that capturing ALL in a contiguous stream is far easier than piecemeal. Couple that with the fact that they have admitted in some parts that the message data were captured, but not opened (for later use if needed) and you don’t just have a harmless traffic analysis/association going on.
They would not be building a Mega Memory Death Star (MMDS) out in Utah if they had no plans to hang onto ALL electronic communications.
Forcing companies to keep records for the NSA doesn’t sound like a solution to the problem.