[greenyoda]

"when you send a piece of snail-mail, you are literally sending it to the government to be handled, have its "metadata" read and recorded as necessary as a means for it to be sent to its destination."

But I don't expect the metadata to be retained indefinitely (except if I requested special services such as tracking or proof of delivery). That has nothing to do with delivering my mail to its destination, just like the phone company retaining my personally identifiable GPS data indefinitely has nothing to do with providing phone service.