What is Google doing with the data? Who has access to it? How do they make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands?
And if you say the difference is that you're surrendering your data to Google voluntarily, I'll say it's not that different from what you do with the phone companies. What you had here was lack of information. You simply didn't know the government was collecting your data. Well, now you do. Most Google users aren't aware that Google is actively scanning and analyzing their information either. The only difference is that the US government owes the people an explanation, while Google reports to no one, as long as its egregious widespread surveillance - which, BTW, is on a much bigger scale than this NSA business - is considered legal. The only reason Google gets away with it is because people either don't know, or would rather not know how their personal information is used by Google (I would add "against them", but that is a metter of opinion).
1. This is wiretapping, par excellence. Metadata in aggregate is shitloads of data, and tells a much more compelling story than the data.
2. Judicially supervised means the public needs to know about the process, and be able to challenge it. Some NSA agent visiting some "judge" who signs a piece of paper in the darkness is certainly not "judicial oversight".
3. US Congress is biased, and lubricated with money on a daily basis. It is beyond me how the US people continue to believe in a political system so cynical and so corrupt.
4. Quick expiration is irrelevant when these orders keep getting re-approved every single fucking time, and again, with no oversight whatsoever.
5. Um, yeah, so the NSA is apparently collecting data from 9 big internet companies. What's that about "further court orders"?
Congratulations, William Saletan, on the worst rebuttal ever of what is now, de facto and de jure, one of the largest surveillance states in the world.