[munk-a]

That is in no way contradictory. I disagree with it as much as you but there's lots of stuff the government does that you can't and this isn't anything new.

As a parallel statement:

> So it's okay for defense contractors to sell tanks to the government but not commercially? I'd love to see a legal analysis of that argument.

[anonymousiam]

Selling tanks is covered under ITAR. If there are Federal/State/County/Province/City regulations that cover (or mandate) providing metadata to all levels of government without a warrant, I'd like to see them (assuming they aren't classified).