In the letter, the government disputes the ACLU's contention that the "government's dragnet acquisition of Plaintiffs' telephone records" violates the law, arguing that the collection and warehousing of telephony metadata is legal and authorized by both Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and by FISA court order.
Witness testimony revealed that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had no telephony phone records in the weeks leading up to the attack, because his account had been shut down for non-payment.
How could phone records — "telephony metadata," as the order called them — not be considered private?
Snowden leaked to the Guardian a secret court order demanding that Verizon Business turn over the records — "telephony metadata" — of calls within, to, and from the United States that cross its network.
We had been told that the bulk collection of call records — "telephony metadata" — was somehow legal, wasn't even surveillance, because it didn't include this sort of thing.
I'm told that specifically Twilio-powered features will include implementing "click-to-call" and automatically recording telephony activity.
"The combination of record telephony additions at Comcast and reduced churn at Cingular could mean pressure on Verizon's first-quarter results," said the firm in a report last week.
Morgan Stanley maintained an "equal-weight" rating and $36 price target on Verizon Communications ahead of the company's first-quarter earnings announcement on Tuesday, May 2. "The combination of record telephony additions at Comcast and reduced churn at Cingular could mean pressure on Verizons first-quarter results," wrote analyst Simon Flannery in a report Friday.
"There is, of course, no constitutionally protected privacy interest in the information contained in call detail records, or telephony metadata," he told the court, citing Smith v. Maryland.
Judge Roger Vinson, until recently a member of the court that reviews the government's surveillance requests, approved the order for "all call data records or telephony metadata" from customers of Verizon Business Services on 25 April.
By Amy Davidson Sorkin December 28 , 2013Two federal judges Richard Leon, in the District of Columbia, and William H. Pauley III, in the Southern District of New York have now ruled in conflicting ways on the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's bulk collection of telephony metadata, or call records.
