Yesterday's revelations from The Guardian about US government collection of data on just about every phone call made in the country is exactly the kind of scenario civil libertarians have been fearing: widespread, dragnet-style surveillance of every American's telephone calls.

To put it simply: the published Verizon document suggests the US government has been keeping a log of just about every phone call made in the last seven years, full stop. This includes who the call was from, who it was made to, how long it was, and where the caller was when the conversation happened.

The responses today have been almost as stunning as the revelation itself. The White House called the data collection a "critical" tool in the fight against terror and noted that the "information acquired does not include the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber." Of course, that's a thin obfuscation; the dragnet is merely a first step, because that's how dragnets work. Once the government determines someone is calling a person of interest, it could easily begin the process of wiretapping that person and collecting personal information, whether the target is a terrorist, or a journalist, activist, or lawyer.

And while activists strongly suspected what was going on, the US Senate knew what was going on—and saw surprisingly little dissent. Two who did protest were Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO).

"When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry," Wyden warned in 2011. Udall said Americans would be "alarmed" if they knew how the Patriot Act was being interpreted to allow mass spying.

Today Udall told his hometown paper, The Denver Post, that he indeed knew about the NSA wiretapping. Udall said he “did everything short of leaking classified information” to stop it and wants to hold Obama accountable for his promises to increase transparency.

The facts suggested Udall and Wyden were lone voices in the wilderness in 2011, and now that the details of the program are public and being responded to, they look even more alone. Senators from both parties have jumped to defend the mass data-collection.

"Everyone should just calm down," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told reporters today. He emphasized that the published order is just a renewal of routine data collection that's been going on for seven years (as if that makes the situation better).

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, also vocally defended the program today. In her view, the program was duly authorized by the "business records" provision of the Patriot Act. "Therefore, it is lawful," said Feinstein. "It has been briefed to Congress.”

The ranking Republican who presides over Senate Intelligence with Feinstein is Saxby Chambliss (D-GA). Chambliss today spoke to The New York Times about how the program is used:

It’s metadata only and it’s what we call minimized. All of these numbers are basically ferreted out by a computer, but if there’s a number that matches a terrorist number that has been dialed by a US number or dialed from a terrorist to a US number, then that may be flagged. And they may or may not seek a court order to go further on that particular instance. But that’s the only time that this information is ever used in any kind of substantive way.”

A lawsuit that could reveal the government’s reasoning

Of course, it's a matter of interpretation whether or not the Patriot Act really allows the kind of mass data collection we now know is being undertaken. So how does the government interpret the Patriot Act?

It won't say. Udall and Wyden tried to force the Obama Administration to describe how it was interpreting the Patriot Act in 2011, but they couldn't push through their amendment. That same year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit demanding to get documents about the government's secret interpretation of Section 215 of that act, the section that allows it to collect records like the "telephony metadata" Verizon has been handing over.

At a March hearing in that case, the government wouldn't even provide page numbers of the documents relevant to EFF's request. Under judicial pressure, the government has now provided the number of pages on some documents. On April 18, DOJ lawyers made a more detailed filing that includes dates and page lengths for most, but not all, of the 101 documents EFF is seeking access to. Some of documents are identified with ridiculous date ranges, like "2/2006-2/2011."

There's also tantalizing descriptions of documents. "Training materials for government personnel pertaining to implementation of section 215 authority," reads the description of several documents.

That case is now lined up for summary judgment. If the EFF wins, the government will surely appeal (and appeal again if necessary); a recent 5-4 Supreme Court surveillance-related decision doesn't bode well for court challenges to government secrecy.

While it's hard to imagine this case bringing much transparency, public knowledge of the government actions and justifications described in those documents is more important now than ever.

But in the past decade, the courts have proved an exceptionally weak tool for those challenging the constitutionality of this brave new world of surveillance. Another EFF case, which was premised on the (correct) assumption that dragnet surveillance was taking place, has been stalled by government arguments about state secrecy. Indeed, one key leak and the political discussion that has ensued has shed more light on what's going on than years of litigation.