[TomJoad]

"There is nothing complicated about the underlying technology that can't be explained adequately to a bunch of intelligent people."

Assuming the underlying technology and it's implications are explained adequately at all. We already know how they try to explain metadata, so how are they going to explain the stuff we still don't know about?

[rayiner]

Metadata is actually a good example. I'd bet that everyone on that panel understands perfectly well what metadata is and is not. The relevant part of the metadata issue isn't technical, it's legal: can it be protected by the 4th amendment, when it's sitting on AT&T's servers? What sophisticated technical understanding is needed to answer this question? Indeed, arguably better technical understanding undermines the argument for protecting it. When you understand that the metadata is something that's generated by AT&T and not you or your phone, that's less of an argument for protecting it.