Byron Acohido

USA TODAY

Poll results released this morning by Anzalone Liszt Grove Research show Americans strongly support reining in NSA surveillance programs.

The pollsters surveyed 803 people last November and found 59% of Americans oppose leaving the NSA's current surveillance programs in place. Nearly three-quarters support the creation of an independent advocate to help protect the public's privacy, while almost two-thirds (63%) say that more oversight is needed over the federal government's surveillance programs.

Snowden effect: Young people now care about privacy

That bell weather comes a day before President Obama on Friday is expected to announce how he believes the NSA program that collects billions of Americans' phone records should be handled going forward.

According to reporting from the Washington Post, Obama at 11 a.m. Eastern Friday will call on Congress to help determine the program's future. Obama acknowledges the program's value as a counterterrorism tool, but is likely to emphasize that bulk collection of phone data is not something that the government should rely on except in limited circumstances, according to the post.

The phone records surveillance program is separate from the NSA's Internet surveillance programs, including PRISM, XKeyscore and Tempora, exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The steady flow of revelations from the Snowden documents, detailing the pervasive nature of the National Security Agency's anti-terrorism surveillance activities, has kept privacy top of mind for many consumers.

Of course the NSA can tap into online data to the extent it does largely because commercial companies, led by Google and Facebook, pursue business models that treat consumer privacy as a free profit-making resource.

It took a wild card, in the form of Edward Snowden, to get the masses focused on who is doing online tracking and profiling, and for what agendas.