> Kevin Bankston, director of New America's Open Technology Institute, explained in a phone call that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act only restricts telecom companies from disclosing data to the government. It doesn't restrict disclosure to other companies, who then may disclose that same data to the government.

It seems like intelligence services spend a lot of their time dreaming up ways to do an end-run around the law. This is the same reason US intelligence does partnerships with foreign intelligence services.