The NSA/GCHQ metadata reassurances are breathtakingly cynical The public is being told that the NSA and GCHQ have 'only' been collecting metadata, not content. That's nothing to be thankful for http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/07/nsa-gchq-metadata-reassurances
NSA surveillance: don't underestimate the extraordinary power of metadata President Obama has reassured US citizens that 'nobody is listening to your calls', but it's not the content of conversations that intelligence agencies crave http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jun/21/nsa-surveillance-metadata-content-obama
ACLU takes from Jay Stanley & Ben Wizner http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/06/06/why-the-government-wants-your-metadata/ and Matt Harwood http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/my-life-circles-why-metadata-incredibly-intimate
It is not only a concern that government has this, privacy concerns about Google/Facebook, for example, have been highlighted for years but primarily by technically savvy people. I suspect that a major factor in why there has not been greater discord is that the average person doesn't understand how much is revealed about them. Many technically savvy people in fact consider privacy to be dead due to the capabilities and exploitations of such by commercial and governmental actors. A current documentary (that I've yet to view) focuses on the business side: http://tacma.net/