Defining wiretaps as only content is splitting legal hairs. Location data alone can get people convicted. Browsing history (IP address/DNS lookups etc) and connection data (who you texted etc) is arguably also not "content". For the person facing the charges there is little practical difference between a content "wiretap" and non-content non-wiretap.
The word "wiretap" has a specific meaning, though. It does not mean location data. It means content. Nobody uses the word "wiretap" to mean location data.
The word "wiretap" has a specific obsolete meaning. The state of telephony moved on and so did the state of "wiretapping", rendering the term itself an anachronism. Incidentally "pen register", e.g. recording the metadata of a line, is also an anachronism.
Considering both of these terms are anachronisms originally created to describe distict devices which haven't been used in decades, getting bent out of shape over the difference between the two doesn't seem like a productive direction to steer the conversation.
The word wiretap has a clear meaning that is unrelated to the physical process it used to represent. Literally everyone understands this. There are many terms like this, and it's not a problem. We don't need to redefine the term "wiretap" just because you're no longer physically tapping wires. What is being revealed is the same, that is what everyone cares about, and so that is how the term is used.
The term wiretap is a term of art and as such is bound to be used imprecisely by people who aren't experts in that particular domain. Getting upset over somebody saying 'wiretap' instead of 'pen register' really exemplifies the worst aspects of socializing with engineers and lawyers.
As you allude to, seeing the forest instead of the trees reveals that people who are upset don't care how any of it works and they don't care which terms are assigned to which concepts. They care that their privacy is being violated. And no, they certainly don't care about court opinions concerning metadata not being data or call records not deserving privacy. The distinction between wiretaps, pen registers, and any other bullshit they dream up is not important to most people, so dragging the conversation into the weeds over the differences between the terms is not productive because it's a distinction without a meaningful difference (unless you're inclined to hassle privacy advocates.)
Except we are actually discussing a technical legal matter. When discussing a technical legal matter, definitions are important. You can say you're upset about metadata collection, but that is a distinct issue from wiretapping. Trying to justify imprecise terminology on the grounds that "people are upset" is simply a tactic for muddying the waters. If your point is good, you can be precise about it.
Most of us are not lawyers. If a lawyer is being imprecise with legal terminology, then they need to be called on it promptly. If however a non-lawyer is misusing terminology but their meaning is clear, correcting their terminology is just derailing the conversation.
If somebody says "That man assaulted me; he punched me right in the face" the correct response is not"Actually that's battery, not assault"
(I don't know [or care] if that 'correction' is true or not, but it's one that's been repeated online ad nauseum.)
You also don't care if the punch was warrantless or not. Here, we are discussing warrantless wiretaps, which has a specific meaning. You don't get to pick and choose which meanings you discard (wiretap) and which meanings you keep (warrantless) because goalposts can be moved forever, and communication becomes impossible.
Also, lawyers (ie me) are free to speak as private citizens. I could go on at length about the legal distinctiveness of content and non-content interception, but whether it does matter is different than whether it should. I don't see metadata as fundamentally different in practice than content. Scotus may say otherwise, but I am under no obligation to agree with them.
Oh I see. I'm kinda torn on this. Content vs. metadata is one thing, and I get where you're coming from, but if I understood your comment correctly, that wasn't quite the only distinction here? You were talking about cell location information, which is independent of calls/texts/other communication -- it's always there by the mere fact of you having cell service. It seems quite legitimate to point out that that's not "wiretapping"?
