This New NSA Story

The New NSA Story:

I've been thinking about this for some time, having first read the Froggy pieces and the piece by Kim du Toit. This is my understanding of the issues involved. I'm happy to invite anyone to explain why I'm wrong, as I am not a lawyer (but several of you are), nor a privacy activist (though at least one of you seems primed to become one soon).

1) The Fourth Amendment protects the right of the people to be secure in their "persons, houses, papers, and effects" from unreasonable search and seizure.

2) However, a person is free to turn over their papers, etc., if they wish.

3) The state of the law has been updated with the times to reflect new technologies, including telephones.

4) The right being protected, however, remains a personal right. You have a right to be free from such searches as regards things you own. You own your telephone, and you own the words you say into it. These things are protected, and the government cannot "search" them without lawful processes.

5) You do not own the records of your phone calls. That is proprietary information of your phone company. Somewhere in your user agreement, their right to collect such information and their ownership of same is explained.

6) The government is not asserting that it has a right to that information. It is not ordering anything be handed over. It is merely asking the phone company if they would mind if they, the government, looked at their proprietary information.

7) As per point 2, the company is free to turn over its papers if it wishes. Many companies have wished to do so, on the grounds that it's usually a good business decision to comply with government requests if you don't have a pressing reason not to do so.

8) Therefore, there is no possibility that this program is either illegal or unConstitutional. It violates no one's Fourth Amendment rights, and it does not violate privacy either because a person -- by agreeing to the collection of the information, even though the terms were 'in the fine print' -- has no reasonable expectation of privacy.

9) However, if it bothers you, you are free to negotiate a different agreement with a different company. Internet service providers already exist whose claim to fame is that they don't keep records and/or will otherwise protect your secrets. There's no reason phone companies can't exist on the same terms. Such plans will probably cost more, as the company is letting to of a valuable piece of property in return -- its marketing abilities based on the collection of that data -- but you get what you pay for.

Is there any point in that reasoning chain that is wrong?