Well, well, well: it is a fine day for those of us stuck with AT&T. Who’s smug now, Veri—hello? Hellllllo? Hi! Hello? Can you hear me? I can hear you but I don’t think you can hear . . . no wait! Hi! O.K., no, it’s fine now—zon users?! [Coughs.] Verizon users. Who’s smug now, Verizon users?

In a crazy scoop, The Guardian reports that thanks to a secret court order issued in April, the “National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon.” On a “daily basis,” the telephone company provides the government with “the numbers of both parties on a call . . . location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.” This will continue until July, when said court order expires. However, if we know the N.S.A.—and we don’t, because to really know someone you need a backlog of their phone’s metadata—we suspect the agency might be interested in reapplying for a new, identical court order. To wit, The Guardian notes that it is “unclear from the leaked document whether the three-month order was a one-off, or the latest in a series of similar orders.”

Verizon declined to comment—although maybe just because it did not have great service, like because it was in an elevator or something—but the White House, in the form of “a written statement to media” by “an unnamed official,” said of the story:

Information of the sort described in the Guardian article has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States, as it allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.

Innocent people should not just be permitted to remain anonymous—that right is reserved for government employees issuing official statements on matters of national security.