[tking8924]

> Is it really an "overreach" if the NSA can acquire the mobile phone records of Yemen "indiscriminately" and use the data to build social graphs for current and future (currently unknown) targets of interest?

Is it an overreach if the Yemeni government "indiscriminately" collects the mobile phone records of US citizens? Or, more realistically, China, Russia, UK, Germany, etc...? It seems to me, when you carry out that kind of surveillance (really any sort of wide reaching security/military tactics) you can only expect reciprocity. And at that point why even be bothered if the NSA can collect American data? Even if they cannot legally capture it on their own, they know exactly where they need to go to get it...

I guess my point really boils down to "Do unto others...".

[twoodfin]

Is it an overreach if the Yemeni government "indiscriminately" collects the mobile phone records of US citizens? Or, more realistically, China, Russia, UK, Germany, etc...?

By my thinking, no, not at all. It's life in the modern world of sovereign states and power politics. And of course one of the NSA's jobs is to make that kind of surveillance harder. (I'm less sanguine about the kinds of intelligence sharing operations with allies that are indeed end-runs around the Fourth Amendment.)