"A common misconception is that an analyst must review the content of communications between people in order to establish a link between them. In fact, an NSA

"A common misconception is that an analyst must review the content of communications between people in order to establish a link between them. In fact, an NSA analyst would regard a person's association and the persistence of that association with other persons as being of greater relevance to a determination of whether the person is a member of a Community of Interest than the actual words used in a series of communcations." - J. Kirk Wiebe, former NSA employee in his sworn Declaration in Jewel v. NSA, September 28, 2012 https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/filenode/wiebedeclaration.pdf https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/filenode/wiebedeclar... I think people fail to realise that the "metadata" would actually be the "damning evidence" that innocent citizens should fear, not the content of their communications. It's like a nationwide pen register. But no one needs to be identified as a suspect (that deserves to have her call records inspected). Everyone is a suspect, by default. They have all call records for every American. Crazy.