You're assuming that the 20% drop off is due to capacity. That isn't my understanding of the current situation.
The Utah facility gives them the ability to store calls for longer, it doesn't increase their scope.
The reason they don't record 20% of calls is, from my understanding, that they have internal rules against recording certain people important to the democratic process within the US (e.g. politicians (and their families), judges, election officials, etc).
Essentially the politicians were concerned that the NSA's resources would be utilised by whichever party was in office to gain an advantage, so they put themselves (both parties) onto a "no spy" list. But you won't find the law where it says that, because it is all internal-rules created by committee behind closed doors.
But wouldn't it be nice if they could use their data to get rid of some corruption in politics? I know, I know, how does the government as a whole police itself? Very tough problem. But at some level I don't really care that they collect data, it's what they do with it that's important. So who decides? What is the master agenda? How do they self police? etc... One can only guess at the answers to these questions. It may be nice to allow anyone in the NSA to spy on anyone else in the NSA to prevent abuse, but that would be a huge problem if a spy managed to get a job there. I just imagine this being a rather complex problem.
They are not allowed to spy on US persons without a warrant. Full stop. The law is quite clear. Further, the court ruled that metadata was exempt from protection because, in part, it was voluntarily handed over to a third party by the end user.
I'd love to hear how you came to your conclusion that only politicians, et. al. enjoy such protections.
Read your links, but found nothing contradictory with what I said... and I certainly found nothing to substantiate the claims of the post I replied to.
What exactly used to be true that is no longer true?
"They are not allowed to spy on US persons without a warrant. Full stop."
That's what you said that is no longer true.
"The FISA Court (FISC) today released a heavily redacted version of its July ruling approving the renewal of the bulk metadata collection on all phone calls from US phone providers under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. "
Then there is the "3 hops" rule that allows full spying of individuals if you are "3 hops" from a suspected terrorist, which is most people alive.
I'm not saying whether or not I support any of this, but I do acknowledge that the NSA was not allowed to spy on US citizens before the patriot act and everything we know indicates that they strictly followed this rule, but things have changed.
