[David Kravets][1]:

> And thus, a digit-collection device attached to a lone purse snatcher’s telephone set the legal precedent used, three decades later, to justify the bulk collection of the same information on every single American.

Nice bit of reporting here by Kravets in looking at how the legal basis for NSA spying was formed off of a case that likely doesn’t have the implications that current courts are purporting it to have.

If you read the article, what you find is that FISC took a Supreme Court decision, which upheld the sentence of man that was specifically being targeted, and turned that into the legal basis for collecting everything on everyone (more or less). ((I see no reason for me to be more accurate than “more or less” if the NSA and FISC are going to play fast and loose with the Constitution.))

[1]: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/10/nsa-smith-purse-snatching/