"Perhaps you should."
I have :)
The Telecommunications Act of 1996
builds upon the one from 1934, it does not replace it.
The additions in regards to subscriber privacy are made by referring to
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986.
Section 2511 (2)(a)(i)(ii) of the ECPA states (heavily abbreviated see link above for full text)
"...providers of wire or electronic communication service. .. are authorized to provide information, facilities, or technical assistance to persons authorized by law to intercept wire, oral, or electronic communications or to conduct electronic surveillance, as defined in section 101 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, if such provider, its officers, employees, or agents, landlord, custodian, or other specified person, has been provided with--
(A) a court order directing such assistance signed by the authorizing judge, or
(B) a certification in writing by a person specified in section 2518(7) of this title or the Attorney General of the United States that no warrant or court order is required by law, that all statutory requirements have been met..."
I would put money on it that it is the second provision (the Attorney General) that was used here. The problem is that FISA does not allow a blanket sweep like this and if the A.G. did in fact certification in writing that "no warrant or court order is required by law" he is terribly mistaken and according to FISA, criminally so.
Now I'm sure you will say that is B.S. and I'll be happy to post the relevant sections of FISA which you can then ignore too.
Don't post them to me.
Post them to Alberto Gonzales, and the legal teams at Verizon, AT&T, and BellSouth. Oh, and to Trent Lott, Lindsay Graham, Jane Harman, and Dick Durbin, all of whom were briefed about this surveillance.
What "blanket sweep"? Phone numbers, with no identification, would hardly be helpful to anybody unless the NSA was already tracking a particular number that had been in communication with an al-Qaeda terrorist suspect.
Cluster-identifier programs could then identify who, in the US, had been in communication with that particular number.
Any surveillance of the content would require a warrant.
I haven't found anything in your cites that apply to what has been alleged.
I haven't found any law banning the provision or the collection of transactional information
Look around here: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sup_01_18_10_I_20_121.html
This sounds like what was used.
"TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 121 >
§ 2702. Voluntary disclosure of customer communications or records...
(c) Exceptions for Disclosure of Customer Records.— A provider described in subsection (a) may divulge a record or other information pertaining to a subscriber to or customer of such service (not including the contents of communications covered by subsection (a)(1) or (a)(2))— ...
(4) to a governmental entity, if the provider reasonably believes that an emergency involving
immediate danger of death or serious physical injury to any person justifies disclosure of the
information; "
Not exactly the use intended for the law, but arguable.