Defenders of the legality of the NSA‘s dragnet approach to surveillance often point to the concept of the third party doctrine, and specifically to the case Smith v. Maryland, in which the Supreme Court said that it was okay for law enforcement to get phone records without a warrant because the information was held by a „third party“ and the original caller had no expectation of privacy in data given to that third party. We‘ve questioned the legitimacy of the third party doctrine for years, and folks like Al Gore and Alan Grayson have discussed why it‘s a stretch to say that the ruling applies to the NSA hoovering up all phone call data.