WASHINGTON — President Obama will
require intelligence agencies to obtain permission from a secret court before
tapping into a vast trove of telephone data, but he will leave the data in the
hands of the government for now, an administration official said.
Mr. Obama, in a much-anticipated speech
on Friday morning, plans to announce that he is pulling back the government’s
wide net of surveillance at home and abroad, staking out a middle ground
between the far-reaching proposals of his own advisers and the concerns of the
nation’s intelligence agencies.
At the heart of the changes, prompted by
the disclosure of surveillance practices by a former National Security Agency
contractor, Edward J. Snowden, will be an overhaul of a bulk data collection
program that has swept up many millions of records of Americans’ telephone
calls, though not their content.
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“The president will say that he is
ordering a transition that will end the Section 215 telephone metadata program
as it currently exists and move to a program that preserves the capabilities we
need without the government holding this bulk metadata,” said an official, who
insisted on anonymity to preview a part of the 11 a.m. speech. The reference
was to Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the government to compel
companies to turn over business records for counterterrorism purposes.
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President Obama spoke at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in
Washington on Thursday. On Friday, he is slated to discuss plans to overhaul
the National Security Agency's data collection program. Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency
“The president believes that the 215
program addresses important capabilities that allow us to counter terrorism,
but that we can and should be able to preserve those capabilities while
addressing the privacy and civil liberties concerns that are raised by the
government holding this metadata,” the official added.
A review panel appointed by Mr.
Obama recommended that the government no longer
be allowed to hold the data and that instead it be left in the hands of the
telecommunications firms or an independent third party and tapped only with
permission of a judge. The telecommunications firms, however, objected to being
the repository of the information and no independent third party currently
exists, so Mr. Obama will call for further study to decide what to do with the
data.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and
intelligence agencies will be assigned to report back to Mr. Obama by March 28
on how the program can continue “without the government holding the metadata,”
said the administration official. At the same time, Mr. Obama will consult with
Congress to seek its views. Any change could require legislation.
In the 11 a.m. address, to an audience
at the Justice Department, Mr. Obama is also expected to outline a plan to
tighten privacy safeguards for foreigners, particularly heads of state, and
propose a new public advocate to represent privacy concerns at a secret
intelligence court.
The president, aides said, will fuse
broad principles with specific proposals – all in the service of his refrain
that just because the government can do something, it does not mean it should.
He will address an audience that includes Justice Department lawyers,
intelligence officials, and civil liberties advocates, though his message will
be watched globally.
The White House has been tight-lipped
about the specific proposals that Mr. Obama will make. But broad descriptions
have begun to circulate, as the president has met with lawmakers and
intelligence officials to brief them. Some of the tough decisions are likely to
be left to Congress, which must sign off on many of Mr. Obama’s changes.
In response to the furor generated by
Mr. Snowden’s disclosures, Mr. Obama commissioned a panel of presidential
advisers who reviewed the N.S.A.'s surveillance practices and urged him to end
the systematic collection of logs of all Americans’ phone calls. It said the
government should keep those in private hands, “for queries and data mining”
only by court order.
The panel, which
included five intelligence and legal experts, recommended in a 300-page report
that any operation to spy on foreign leaders pass a rigorous test that weighs
the potential economic or diplomatic costs if the operation becomes public.To
prevent harm to the credibility of American technology firms, it also
recommended that the N.S.A. stop weakening encryption technologies for computer
networks and using flaws in common computer programs as a basis for mounting
cyberattacks.
By embracing
some of these proposals, like stricter standards on surveillance of foreign
leaders, while brushing aside others, like storing bulk telephone data with
private companies, the president is balancing sometimes conflicting demands
from Silicon Valley, the intelligence agencies and the pinstriped world of
diplomacy.
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Mr. Obama has
already rejected one recommendation: splitting command of the N.S.A., which
conducts surveillance, from the United States Cyber Command, the Pentagon’s
cyberwarfare unit, to avoid concentrating too much power in the hands of a
single individual.
The speech has been weeks in the making,
aides said, after a long Christmas break in Hawaii during which Mr. Obama weighed
the 46 recommendations made by his panel of advisers.
For a president
trained as a constitutional lawyer, who began his career as a critic of
government spying, the speech is likely to lay bare the evolution of Mr.
Obama’s thinking, after five years in which he has absorbed a stream of threats
in his presidential daily briefing.