Misplaced fears.(National Security Agency )

ASTORM broke loose when USA Today more or less rehashed news that the New York Times had reported five months before: In addition to eavesdropping on the international conversations of suspected al-Qaeda operatives, the National Security Agency collects a large amount of domestic telecommunication records for datamining purposes. Not only is this news old, it isn't the least bit scandalous. The administration is operating within the law, and its activities are sensible, given the threat we face.

In 1979, the Supreme Court held that, while people have an expectation that the content of their telephone conversations is private, simple phone-usage information--e.g., the subscribers and numbers of the phones making and receiving calls, and the calls' time and duration--is not private. Service providers maintain records of such information, which form the basis for billing, for service inquiries by users, and for various marketing activities. Because there is no expectation of privacy in the handling of these records, they are not protected by the Fourth Amendment. For decades, the government has also gathered such records to conduct criminal investigations. This process has involved collecting records of vastly more customers than have been known to be involved in criminal conduct, but has not been held unconstitutional.

The point of investigation, particularly in national-security cases, is to ...