There are certainly grave concerns about oversight, abuse, privacy, etc, here. However, I find it interesting that the FBI had to have the card reprogrammed to conduct their surveillance. Similar to Google and others revealing government requests for data, these incidents imply that the government at least doesn't quite have complete unfettered access to all of our online communications, as I often hear some claiming (NSA super data center!!). Not that it's still not prudent to assume otherwise and work towards greater privacy and all that. But sometimes I find it a useful perspective to keep in mind even as we seem to slide further toward such a state.
They don't need complete unfettered access themselves. As this case shows, corporations are all to eager to give them anything they want. Why spend time building it themselves when others give it for free, just by getting "Bob"[1] down the hall to sign a piece of paper.
1. The magistrates and the police work very closely together. By nature of the relationship alone, they are likely to be inclusive of requests. When information about what is being done, as is alleged in this case, it effectively opens the police to access to anything.
I wouldn't be that optimistic. The FBI investigates and prosecutes crime, which makes it a much more public organization than the NSA.
Even assuming the agencies talk to one another, and for all the FBI's law-bending, they still have to present their evidence in court, and 'your honor, we got this off an NSA dragnet' isn't gonna cut it.
1) Obtain information about a crime via method you don't want made public (classic example is ongoing undercover work or ongoing wiretap)
2) Have someone tell a CI, then have CI report it back
3) use report to follow up and obtain sufficient justification for warrant
4) actual source of the tip is never disclosed in court.
Not saying that's what happened here because the NSA doesn't give two shits about some guy that filled out a few fraudulent tax returns, just pointing out that that shit never show up in court. That's also why very few espionage cases are brought to trial.
I doubt that. The NSA is extremely secretive even within the government, and in general the different members of the intelligence community (which disturbingly includes the FBI and the DEA) are barely able to cooperate.
