Originally Posted by Rochard

But how is our government out line?

All of this is done by warrants issued by judges. Agency "x" believes that "mr x" is engaged in legal activity against the United States, gets a warrant from a judge, and then serves Google with a request for their data.

Most of this seems to have been done by local police departments for use in solving local crimes. Local police investigate a local crime - a murder, robbery, rape, disappearance - go to a local judge to a get a warrant to look at their phone records, email, Facebook, whatever. This is the way it's always been done.

There is nothing illegal so far.