It is important to note that what the NSA is doing is NOT tapping your calls or communications. They are tracking the metadata. No content is being looked at.
In USA citizen to In USA citizen , they still officially need a warrant.
Unofficially
they have the info, they dump it into those
MetaData centers. Then yes they keep the metadata , and they
"discard" the primary data. (singsong voice --- no they don't)
In USA citizen to Out-of-country USA citizen = they got your stuff.
In USA citizen to In USA non-citizen = they got your stuff.
Out-of-USA non-citizen to Out-of-USA non-citizen and routed via
standard internet packet protocalls via USA = surprise they got your stuff.
Now, you can still argue this is wrong, but (and I shudder that I'm actually saying this) Michele Bachman was right, use the facts, not an exaggeration to debate the issue.
... yeah a Stopped But Ringing Alarm Clock is right once (or twice) a day.
Still oh so annoying. At least she might get busted for something else soon.