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.
I'd love to hear how you came to your conclusion that only politicians, et. al. enjoy such protections.