[Svartalfiar]

Intelligence is usually not a single smoking gun, but rather a lot of information, hard work and dedication.

Intelligence is slow, patient, and takes a lot of little puzzle pieces. Metadata can be very useful in putting together a puzzle piece here, 2 over there, another piece here. The link below explains a little bit very well. That said, there's still no reason the NSA should be allowed to do what they've been doing, without a warrant. For a particular person and describing the data. Their program is fully unConstitutional, but could theoretically be very useful.

Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere

[norwaypinesavage]

There are some knowledgeable people that argue what the NSA was doing up until yesterday WAS constitutional. The US supreme court has ruled that the addresses on the exterior of a letter do not have the same constitutional protections as the contents of the letter. The metadata on a phone call can be considered the same information.

It is also my understanding that the NSA also must have FISA court approval to look at any particular piece of the data. That is, they acquire all of the phone data, but get the court review of what particular items they look for.