[codex]

As far as I know, none of the NSA's practices have been ruled unconstitutional. At best, the courts have sent mixed signals, and the collection of metadata was explicitly decreed constitutional by a precious Supreme Court ruling.

[intslack]

Not exactly, you have to stretch pen register authority pretty far to extend it to the NSA's bulk programmatic uses.

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/11/problems-with-the-fiscs-n...