That he is making this gesture is --- well, it's just a gesture.

Nothing will come of it.

The phone companies and associated enterprises will collect as usual - and turn things over when asked to do so.

The option of them NOT collecting - but just leaving us alone to express ourselves without them looking over our shoulders is - as I read it - not on the table.

People who talk about curbing the surveillance state without talking also about somehow deconstructing the interventionist, militarized, national security state aren't living in the real world, imo.  

Obama is talking about - or at least making sounds about curbing the surveillance state.  

So, now - let him make some sounds about deconstructing the interventionist, militarized, national security state.

I'm interested.

People who talk about curbing the surveillance state without talking also about somehow deconstructing the interventionist, militarized, national security state aren't living in the real world, imo.

You'd have to get the rest of the world to place nice as well.  You think China or Russia will give up spying?  You think al-Qaeda or one of its offshoots will stop planning terrorist attacks?

You know they track you too, don't you - even if you use cash?

The desire to collect information on customers is not new for Target or any other large retailer, of course. For decades, Target has collected vast amounts of data on every person who regularly walks into one of its stores. Whenever possible, Target assigns each shopper a unique code -- known internally as the Guest ID number -- that keeps tabs on everything they buy. "If you use a credit card or a coupon, or fill out a survey, or mail in a refund, or call the customer help line, or open an e-mail we've sent you or visit our Web site, we'll record it and link it to your Guest ID," Pole said. "We want to know everything we can."

Also linked to your Guest ID is demographic information like your age, whether you are married and have kids, which part of town you live in, how long it takes you to drive to the store, your estimated salary, whether you've moved recently, what credit cards you carry in your wallet and what Web sites you visit. Target can buy data about your ethnicity, job history, the magazines you read, if you've ever declared bankruptcy or got divorced, the year you bought (or lost) your house, where you went to college, what kinds of topics you talk about online, whether you prefer certain brands of coffee, paper towels, cereal or applesauce, your political leanings, reading habits, charitable giving and the number of cars you own. (In a statement, Target declined to identify what demographic information it collects or purchases.) All that information is meaningless, however, without someone to analyze and make sense of it. That's where Andrew Pole and the dozens of other members of Target's Guest Marketing Analytics department come in.

Almost every major retailer, from grocery chains to investment banks to the U.S. Postal Service, has a "predictive analytics" department devoted to understanding not just consumers' shopping habits but also their personal habits, so as to more efficiently market to them. "But Target has always been one of the smartest at this," says Eric Siegel, a consultant and the chairman of a conference called Predictive Analytics World. "We're living through a golden age of behavioral research. It's amazing how much we can figure out about how people think now."

The reason Target can snoop on our shopping habits is that, over the past two decades, the science of habit formation has become a major field of research in neurology and psychology departments at hundreds of major medical centers and universities, as well as inside extremely well financed corporate labs. "It's like an arms race to hire statisticians nowadays," said Andreas Weigend, the former chief scientist at Amazon.com. "Mathematicians are suddenly sexy." As the ability to analyze data has grown more and more fine-grained, the push to understand how daily habits influence our decisions has become one of the most exciting topics in clinical research, even though most of us are hardly aware those patterns exist. One study from Duke University estimated that habits, rather than conscious decision-making, shape 45 percent of the choices we make every day, and recent discoveries have begun to change everything from the way we think about dieting to how doctors conceive treatments for anxiety, depression and addictions.

Are you as upset with the server at a restaurant when s/he presents you with the bill for the food you just ate? Do you question them regarding the restaurant's monopoly of the food and drinks provided in that retail space?