Dan, I doubt anyone can answer your question easily because you seem to have contradictions in your scenario. At one point you say:
private company to collect information about terrorist entities, who in turn privately contracts with the top X telecom providers and Y social media companies
but then you continue:
to obtain all available information that it can, via TAP ports or direct database access.
and then:
That private organization, through analysis, knows a lot about you
I'm confused, in your scenario, is the data collection limited to "terrorist entities", or does your statement, "all available information that it can" mean that it gets everyone's info, and then does their filtering later? Additionally, one would hope that by "terrorist entities", you would be referring to those who plan on hurting or killing innocent people, whether that be an Islamofactist terrorist planning to blow up a government building, or a right wing terrorist planning to do the same (for different reasons), or a environmentalists planning to sink a legal whaling boat, or a anti-abortionist planning to blow up an abortion clinic... take your pick. The point being that mass-killing of innocent people is the common thread... NOT the politics. And I hope that you haven't downward defined this to someone that could be easily used to "pick off" political opponents, right?
Have your 4th Amendment rights been abridged in this scenario
Sorry if this comes across as rude or snobby, but I think you just need to read the 4th Amendment about 20 times to yourself and let it all soak in. TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION: If the Federal Government is paying a private entity to do the snooping, then they are a defacto agent of the state. That doesn't make the 4th amendment apply any less applicable. Even then, to abide by the 4th amendment, there should be SPECIFIC persons/orgs AND specific info/items that are being searched where that search is SPECIFICALLY approved by a judge or court IN ADVANCE (no super wide "blanket" approvals, no broad fishing expeditions)... only THEN does the searching for the information meet 4th amendment requirements. The fact that the search was of your e-mail or phone records doesn't make the 4th amendment apply any less than if they were looking inside the drawer in the nightstand next to your bed! There are notable exceptions... for example, an employer is really the owner of the mailbox, not their employee. Therefore, there is an argument that government employees don't have "privacy rights" from the government for their official work e-mail accounts. There are probably several other exceptions like that. But such exceptions are a tiny percentage of the whole. -- Rob McEwen http://dnsbl.invaluement.com/ rob@invaluement.com +1 (478) 475-9032