The Guardian reports that it obtained a classified order from the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing the FBI to collect information from Verizon between April 25 and July 19, 2013, for the following:
... all call detail records or "telephony metadata" created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.
Emphasis added.
This particular order doesn't allow them to listen in on the calls, so presumably they are simply fishing for calls to or from people they suspect of something. And presumably once they made a connection then they would seek a wiretap order. So ordinary Americans might be justified in thinking that no one is listening in on their calls. But one never knows.
At least they are getting court orders. In the days of J. Edgar Hoover whether or not a court granted a wiretap order simply determined whether the wiretap results would go into the official file or a secret file.
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