— There is the very real prospect that the (NSA) program will go on for as long as America is combatting terrorism, which realistically could be forever! — I believe that bulk telephony metadata collection and analysis almost certainly does violate a reasonable expectation of privacy. — I have serious doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program as a means of conducting time-sensitive investigations in cases involving imminent threats of terrorism. (Leon referred to a 1979 Supreme Court ruling, Smith v. Maryland, that the government has cited in arguing that no one has an expectation of privacy for the telephone data that phone companies keep as business records. … Continue reading Richard Leon