AP Source: NSA phone data control to come to end

Friday - 1/17/2014, 8:22am ET
JULIE PACE
AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Friday will call for ending the government's control of phone data from millions of Americans, a senior administration official said. The move marks a significant change to the National Security Agency's controversial bulk phone record collection program.

Obama will announce the move in a highly anticipated speech at the Justice Department. However, the official said Obama will not recommend who should control the phone data and will instead call on the attorney general, intelligence community and Congress to make that determination. He's asked for a recommendation on where to move the data before March 28, when the collection program comes up for reauthorization.

A presidential review panel proposed moving the data to the telephone companies or a third party. But the phone providers have balked at changes that would put them back in control of the records, citing liability concerns if hackers or others were able to gain unauthorized access to the records.

For now, the government will retain control of the telephone data. But the official said Obama is also ordering that, effective immediately, a judicial finding will be required to access that database.

The moves are more sweeping than what many U.S. officials had been anticipating about the president's surveillance decisions. People close to the White House review process say Obama was grappling with the key decisions on the phone record collections -- known as Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act -- even in the days leading up to Friday's speech.

The changes are expected to be met with pushback from some in the intelligence community, who have been pressing Obama to keep the surveillance programs largely intact.

The official insisted on anonymity because this person was not authorized to discuss the president's decisions, by name, ahead of his speech.

Reacting to reports of Obama's plan, retired Gen. Michael Hayden, a former NSA director, said "no one will hold it (the phone data) as well."

Appearing on NBC's "Today" show Friday, Hayden said there has been "serious, irreversible harm to the ability" of the National Security Agency to collect intelligence. Obama's review of the nation's surveillance apparatus was spurred by disclosures about the government's sweeping surveillance programs by former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden.

But the president's address will still leave many questions about reforms to the surveillance programs unanswered. He is expected to recommend further study on several of the 46 recommendations he received from a presidential review group, including ideas for expanding privacy protections to foreigners.

Obama is also expected to call for the creation of an independent privacy advocate on the secretive court that approves the phone record collections. The court currently hears arguments only from the government.

While the privacy advocate post has broad support, a U.S. district judge this week panned the recommendation as unnecessary and possibly counterproductive.

Many of the changes Obama was expected to announce appeared aimed at shoring up the public's confidence in the spying operations.

In previewing Obama's speech, White House spokesman Jay Carney had said Thursday the president believed the government could make surveillance activities "more transparent in order to give the public more confidence about the problems and the oversight of the programs."

The president also was expected to announce changes in U.S. surveillance operations overseas, including ratcheting up oversight to determine whether the government will monitor communications of friendly foreign leaders. It's unclear whether there will be any changes to how the government access or holds communications records collected from foreigners living overseas.

The leaks from Snowden, a fugitive now living in Russia, sparked intense anger in Europe, particularly the revelations that the U.S. was monitoring the phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

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AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report.