Obama's NSA phone-record law ignores the other (big) data we're giving away | Dan Gillmor

We are no longer merely creatures of metadata. We are now bystanders to the demise of privacy. Will anyone protect us?

So President Obama is finally ready to do something about the government storage of our phone records, preparing legislation for Congress that would partially change the National Security Agency's bulk collection. Except he's missing something much more important: all of the other, much more revealing data we generate simply by living our daily lives. What about all of the other data that internet companies buy and sell, and that yet more companies create and sell without even telling us – indeed, all of the rest of a data retention program that you and I helped build?

Of course we should be skeptical of the new NSA laws – of government objectives and Congressional fears and loopholes the intelligence community will inevitably bake in. Obama says he needs "to win back the trust ... of ordinary citizens". But we can't even begin to feel reassured about the long-term trajectory of surveillance in America, not when so much of our ordinary communications don't take place on the usual phone-record system at all.