US president Barack Obama announced plans today to limit sweeping US government surveillance programmes that have come under criticism since leaks by a former spy agency contractor, saying the United States "can and must be more transparent".
"Given the history of abuse by governments, it's right to ask questions about surveillance, particularly as technology is reshaping every aspect of our lives," Mr Obama told a news conference at the White House.
Saying that it was important to strike the right balance between security and civil liberties, Mr Obama said he was unveiling specific steps to improve oversight of surveillance and restore public trust in the government’s programmes.
“It’s not enough for me as president to have confidence in these programmes. The American people need to have confidence in them, as well,” Mr Obama said, adding that he was confident the programmes were not being abused.
The announcement - made just before Mr Obama heads for summer holiday on Martha's Vineyard - may be greeted as at least a partial victory for supporters of ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden who is now in Russia, where he was granted asylum last week.
The Obama administration has vigorously pursued Mr Snowden to bring him back to the United States to face espionage charges for leaking details of the surveillance programmes to the media.
“I don’t think Mr Snowden was a patriot,” Mr Obama said at the news conference, brushing off the suggestion that the announcement showed Mr Snowden had done the right thing in revealing the extent of the government’s programme.
Mr Obama said he planned to work with Congress to pursue “appropriate reforms” of Section 215 of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act that governs the collection of so-called “metadata” such as phone records, insisting that the government had no interest in spying on ordinary Americans.
He did not specifically lay out how that programme will be reined in. Instead, he pledged greater oversight, greater transparency and constraints.
Mr Obama will also pursue with Congress a reform of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which considers requests from law enforcement authorities to target an individual for intelligence gathering.
Mr Obama said he wanted to let a civil liberties representative weigh in on the court’s deliberations to ensure an adversarial voice is heard.
The secretive court, authorised under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, has been criticised for essentially rubber-stamping the US government’s requests to search through Americans’ electronic records.
Currently, the FISA court makes its decisions on government surveillance requests without hearing from anyone but US Justice Department lawyers in its behind-closed-doors proceedings.
Mr Obama also said he wanted to provide more details about the NSA programs to try to restore any public trust damaged by the Snowden disclosures.
The administration will also form a high-level group of outside experts to review the U.S. surveillance effort.
The NSA declined to comment on Mr Obama’s proposals. It is also not clear if Congress will take up the initiatives.
A number of influential lawmakers have vigorously defended the spying programmes as critical tools needed to detect terrorist threats.
US senator Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that her panel would hold a series of hearings to study the surveillance programmes.
“This will be the primary order of business for the committee this fall and will be used to develop proposals to increase transparency and improve privacy protections for these vital national security programmes,” Ms Feinstein said.
Brendan Buck, spokesman for House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, said Republicans expect the White House must ensure that reforms do not compromise programmes that protect against terrorism.
He also criticised Mr Obama for not sufficiently explaining the government’s data collection.
“Our priority should continue to be saving American lives, not saving face,” Mr Buck said.
Republican Representative Peter King issued a statement stridently defending the surveillance programmes and calling Mr Obama’s reform plan “a monumental failure in presidential wartime leadership and responsibility”.
The Patriot Act, launched by then president George W Bush after the September 11th, 2001, attacks, was initiated as a terrorism-fighting tool to prevent a similar attack from ever happening again.
But frequent questions have been raised about the scope of the law and whether its sweeping tactics allows unwarranted intelligence gathering on innocent Americans.
The Snowden disclosures generated concerns about whether people were being forced to sacrifice their constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties in the open-ended search for terrorism links.
Mr Obama met with the heads of technology and telecoms companies such Apple and AT&T yesterday to discuss government surveillance.
A Google computer scientist and transparency advocates also participated in the meeting, according to the White House.
The search for Mr Snowden has upset US relations with some Latin American countries, China and, above all, Russia.
Mr Obama this week cancelled a planned summit in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin.
Mr Obama said the United States had always had tension with Russia and it was an appropriate juncture to reassess where the two nations stand.
“Frankly, on a whole range of issues where we think we can make some progress, Russia has not moved,” Mr Obama said.
The revelation of the sweeping US electronic spying programmes has also alienated countries such as Germany, which fiercely defends its citizens’ privacy rights.
Reuters