"The ultimate goal of signals intelligence and analysis is to learn not only what is being *said*, and what is being *done*, but what is being * thought*. With the proliferation of search engines that directly track the links between individual human minds and the words, images, and ideas that both characterize and increasingly constitute their thoughts, this goal appears within reach at last." [...] "as if to discount disclaimers by the NSA that they are only capturing * metadata*, Turing, whose World War II work on the Enigma would make him one of the patron saints of the NSA, was already explicit that it is the * metadata* that count. If Google has taught us anything, it is that if you simply capture enough links, over time, you can establish meaning, follow ideas, and reconstruct someone's thoughts. It is only a short step from suggesting what a target may be thinking *now*, to suggesting what that target may be thinking *next*." http://www.edge.org/conversation/nsa-the-decision-problem
As the piece describes, meta-data is the issue and it applies to the state as well as private actors. Also, content *is* being collected as well as disclosures previous to Snowden reveal: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/aug/15/nsa-they-know-much-more-you-think/.