Both you and that which you reply to are incorrect. Deliberate surveillance of domestic communications of any persons or international communications of U.S. persons without judicial approval is unlawful. Nonpublic information regarding U.S. persons incidentally captured in foreign surveillance must be minimized.
Surveillance state may be real, and we all know what has actually been going on (to include massive interception and storage of so-called metadata of domestic U.S. communication on a vast scale), but that doesn't change the fact that U.S. surveillance of foreigners located in the U.S., or of communications of U.S. persons that take international paths, is flat-out illegal without judicial approval.
What is really needed (barring a codified policy change by the legislature and executive), is some meaningful restraint from the Supreme Court on government intrusion into so-called metadata collection. We've come a long way since the pen register.
That was your point, but the replies by x5n1 and arca_vorago to which rebutting, misrepresented the status quo as legally permitting surveillance of U.S. persons transiting international boundaries. It does not.
Surveillance state may be real, and we all know what has actually been going on (to include massive interception and storage of so-called metadata of domestic U.S. communication on a vast scale), but that doesn't change the fact that U.S. surveillance of foreigners located in the U.S., or of communications of U.S. persons that take international paths, is flat-out illegal without judicial approval.
What is really needed (barring a codified policy change by the legislature and executive), is some meaningful restraint from the Supreme Court on government intrusion into so-called metadata collection. We've come a long way since the pen register.