Bothered that the government has the metadata from all your calls, so that it can map out the details of your life at the click of a button? If you really are, little in President Barack Obama's much-hyped speech on intelligence gathering should allay your concerns.
True, Obama announced that he would "end" the metadata-collection program "as it currently exists." But he never explained how, ignoring the recommendations of his own handpicked review group and instead asking his administration for new technical options on the bulk storage of data by the end of March.
If you remember the president's promise to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, you know that "ending" something means doing it subject to realistic constraints — which may keep the program from ending at all. And if you don't have short-term amnesia, you'll recall that the Obama administration isn't exactly bristling with skilled high-tech advisers who can build complicated new solutions to technological problems.
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