I'm reading a great book - Habeas Data - on specifically these issues. The idea of the metadata being separate from the actual data (in terms of surveillance an

I'm reading a great book - Habeas Data - on specifically these issues. The idea of the metadata being separate from the actual data (in terms of surveillance and warrants) became a thing in the late 70s.. a case involving ATT in 1977 iirc. Since that time, it's been generally understood that to get the actual data requires a warrant whereas the metadata just requires asking whoever is storing the metadata. If we want to roll that back - and I do - we need to demonstrate that the metadata is just as telling/informative/sensitive/damaging as the data itself and therefore should be protected under the same standards.