Obama to ban some surveillance activities
Big News Network
Saturday 11th January, 2014
President Barack Obama, who has been reviewing a series of recommendations made by a White House review panel on surveillance activities against American people, has said he will be prepared to unveil reforms to the National Security Agency programs in a speech next Friday, January 17th.
The president is expected to agree to some of the 46 recommendations made by the White House review panel to make sweeping changes to the work of the NSA.
Obama has been promising transparency and privacy changes for the controversial NSA surveillance programs.
Members of the intelligence community, privacy advocates and telecom companies have already been informed what they should expect from the forthcoming announcement.
On Friday, President Obama is expected to call for a halt to the government collection of telephone metadata while asking phone and Internet companies to retain control of the material in case government agencies need the information in the future.
The government would then need to seek additional legal approval to review the retained phone histories.
The president will also reportedly call for oversight on whether to tap the phones of foreign heads of state.
Controversial practices, recently revealed by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, showed the United States had been listening to conversations by friendly heads of state.
One of the foreign leaders was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was incensed when she discovered American intelligence operatives had listened in on her mobile phone.
