For better or worse, the distinction between data and metadata is deeply ingrained in 4th amendment law, specifically Smith v. Maryland. And technology hasn't changed the rationale underlying that distinction either. Back in the day, addressing on the outside of an envelope was considered "metadata" and unprotected because you had to reveal that information to the third party for the mail to get routed, so had no expectation of privacy. This same reasoning applies perfectly well to the phone calls in the 1970's in Smith, or for that matter a cell phone call, and arguably TCP/IP headers, today.
My understanding is that the "Subject" line of emails are also considered metadata for the purpose of surveillance and warrantless information demands by police.
Subject lines are clearly not needed for routing.
There's feature creep (a.k.a. slippery slope) at work even for metadata.
Admittedly I'm only thinking of a single datapoint here, but in the case of Lavabit, the court order which was intended to grant metadata collection ability to the FBI specifically mentioned that "Subject" headers were to be stripped. At least in that case, the relevant government spooks weren't even trying to argue that "Subject" lines were in their purview.
They're headers, which categorically tend to be viewed as metadata even by technologists. You're right that they aren't necessary for routing, but this is not exactly the government being slippery. Even where encryption is used, metadata — including the subject — tends to be sent in the clear.
They're MUA headers, not MTA headers. That's an important distinction; those headers are generated directly by the end-users' systems, rather than by the systems responsible for routing the mail around.
Even that isn't a clear bright line. For example, the To: header also comes from the MUA, and it's crucial to the message's transit. (In fact, the To: header is very much analogous to the stuff written on the outside of an envelope.)
To: actually isn't used in routing. MTAs and MDAs route messages based on the target address that's communicated in the 'RCPT TO' command, ignoring whatever may be in the To/CC[/BCC] lines, should the MUA happen to generate those headers.
The set of metadata used in routing, aka the 'envelope', also contains a return path, which is (normally) used for things like submitting delivery failure reports.
No, the To: and From: fields you see in your MUA is the software equivalent of my saying over the phone, "Hey, this is Steve - is Dave there?" In my fairly educated opinion, of course.
It's too much of a jump from one person being recorded without a warrant, to everyone being recorded without a warrant.
That distinction hasn't changed at all.
Well, unless we decide that we don't want the NSA reading TCP/IP headers.
As we've seen in recent commercial data breaches, the collection of a huge amount of data makes a tempting target. The potential abusers of that data, in this case, is not only identity thieves, but foreign governments and "rogue" US employees. Although I'm finding it hard to remember what "rogue" means anymore.
It's more reasonable than just making things up. There's no proof that it isn't your complete records. There's also no proof that it isn't your full analyzed genome and the complete details of your future as determined by precognizant children in an underground lab. If we're willing to speculate without any concern for concrete facts, there's nothing we can't accuse the government of doing. So sticking to the only facts we have, even if they're shaky, is hardly something to criticize rayiner for.
accusing a sect of liars of telling lies, is not making things up, taking proven liars at their word is just as bad.
by saying "the executive spys on the public generally in a way that acquires only metadata", he's sticking to the facts as admitted so far by these liars.
however, given that the people who are telling us they only acquire metadata, having previously denied it, also tell us they are not performing mass surveillance, use weasel language such as "under this program", redefine words that have sensible meanings such as "collect", it's worth taking the time to criticize someone for repeating their party line.
That somebody has said something may be a fact, but the substance of the content of that speech is not a fact. We have as much evidence that what they say is true as we have evidence that idle speculations that don't contradict the known facts are true. None. None other than what Snowden hands us, rather, which tells us that they are not only willing to lie to us, but excited to come up with new ways to do it.
>If we're willing to speculate without any concern for concrete facts
To be clearer: I don't think that the government is particularly interested in my genome, therefore I don't believe that the government has analyzed my genome. There's no evidence that precognition exists, so I don't believe that there are psychics analyzing me for future crimes. The government is clearly interested in the content of all of my conversations and everything that I read. Let's talk about the possibilities of that, instead.
There are things that the NSA are doing and have done that will never be able to be verified. There are things that I am doing and have done that will never be able to be corroborated, and will leave no evidence. Operating as if that's not a possibility is a denial of reality. Allow the facts to remain indeterminate, rather than relying on the testimony of the accused because you're starving for facts.
you are begging the question, it's not metadata any more when they can cross reference it to deanonymise it. in my mind, snowden's documents show bulk domestic data collection.
