NemZ wrote:Gathering information through extralegal avenues in sweeping collections that don't discriminate between targets and then holding onto that info they legally shouldn't have in the first place just in case it becomes useful later is a damn far way from due dilligence.
Good thing I never said anything of the sort, then. I was talking about opsec there, and said as much. Let's not start burning straw men, eh? And you're operating in hindsight there, not talking about the law as it was interpreted at the time.
It's treating the public as suspects you just don't have a crime to pin on them yet.
Given that the U.S. public have never been established to be targets of NSA investigation that doesn't really hold up. The public are being used to collect data on foreign targets, not treated as targets themselves. It's not the same thing. That doesn't mean everything is hunky-dory, but just because there might be a problem doesn't mean everything you care to say about it is valid.
