Should the Government be permitted to collect the data from an individual's phone calls?

The NSA has collected phone data from individuals for years. The step from collecting data about calls to data about the contents of calls is a small one. Here is the latest information about Congress's votes on this topic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/25/nsa-surveillance-amash-amendment-narrow-defeat

What the US does today, much of the world is likely to do tomorrow, so this does concern non-Americans. Big Brother seems to come nearer every day.

Here is an estimate of the costs (from archive.org):-

Cost to Store All U.S. Phone Calls Made in a Year in Cloud Storage

Because of recent news reports, I wanted to cross check the cost feasibility of the National Security Agency’s recording all of the US phone calls and processing them.

These estimates show only $27M in capital cost, $2M in electricity, and take less than 5,000 square feet of space to store and process all U.S. phone calls made in a year. The National Security Agency seems to be spending $1.7 billion on a 100k square foot datacenter that could easily handle this, and much, much more. Therefore, money and technology would not hold back such a project—it would be held back if someone did not have the opportunity or will.

Not very much for politicians who think in trillions (when they think at all).