The precedent as to what constitutes a phone call is still point to point switching, not coincidentally representing the intent of both callers and no one else. Accordingly, it still takes a physical tap contrary to that intent to access that data over lines that the provider owns. That contract is for carriage of data owned by the customer and no one else (that is, unless you regard conversation as public property, which would make you a socialist).
Even worse, when you hit the send button on your email application, that message will also be sent unencrypted through the cheapest network available, possibly including server / data centers in mainland China, where I can assure they could care less about the 4th Amendment.
What is "possible" is not what is likely or reasonably expected. Not only that, but it is entirely within the capability of the providers to provide secure communications on all but EM transmissions (I used to make high speed switches for exactly such systems). I understand as well as anyone that a phone call is multiplexed onto a fiber carrying a million other transmissions. I also understand that the telecom could easily monitor what was being taken off by an agency with said physical tap exercising an authorized warrant assuring that the content of the communications of all other customers' remains inviolate. It's all a matter of will and cost. Effectively, you are arguing that I have no reasonable expectation of the exercise of such a will because of that cost. Well, you can bet that if the telecom was liable for that security they would find a way to effect it. Guess who illegally indemnifies them making a mockery of "equal protection"? And please, the cost at the margins would be pennies.
As far as commercial telecom is concerned, unless you pay extra for additional security - to paraphrase the judge in the NSA ruling - you have arbitrarliy ceded your right to privacy every time you talk into your phone, or hit the send button on your email server.
The judge is legislating from the bench. He has no Constitutional power to make that determination. Simply because such negligence is ubiquitous because of said tacit indemnification does not mean that rights have not been violated. Your argument is akin to justifying our unconstitutional regulatory monstrosity simply because they have been getting away with it for a long time. A plain reading of the Constitution and the arguments of its drafters indicates otherwise.
It's not just that the NSA can get to it - anybody can get to it that has the motivation and means to do so.
First of all, the NSA is not "everybody." The NSA is the Federal government, which is Constitutionally precluded from taking possession of my communications. The government is exercising police powers to gain that access to those fiber optic trunks, which is otherwise very difficult to gain, never mind the sophistication to decode and record data acquired at that rate. What the government lacks is a lookup table with which to facilitate searching that data. Once they've got it, there is NOTHING stopping them from searching anything they want without restriction.
You shrug, saying "anybody can do it." It's a cop-out. "Anybody" can't. Governments can, but the Feds, whose very existence is authorized by the Constitution alone, may not, without a warrant detailing the specifics of what they are after, and then only with Congressional oversight. Deal with it.
The Utah Data Center should be disabled and shut down. There are far better and more effective ways to secure this country against terrorists than instituting the power to violate the rights of citizens at a whim. If nothing else the abuses of the IRS should demonstrate the criticality of this decision, for without it, there will be no way for the people to organize means to enforce their will. And that sir is the last resort.