Aamer Madhani and David Jackson

USA TODAY

Obama said the proposal will address some of the core concerns raised by critics

A judge will have to approve each inquiry made by the NSA

President has directed administration to renew current program for another 90 days

WASHINGTON — President Obama will soon detail what he is calling a "workable" legislative proposal to end the controversial practice of collecting bulk records of Americans' phone calls by the National Security Agency.

Obama called for new rules in a January speech where he detailed plans to overhaul the NSA's surveillance programs.

On Tuesday, the president said that the Justice Department and intelligence community officials have presented him with a proposal to end bulk collection that he has embraced.

"They have presented me now with an option that I think is workable," Obama said during a news conference at The Hague, where he was attending the Nuclear Security Summit.

Obama said the proposal will address some of the core concerns raised by critics of the NSA's metadata program, which came to light because of revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Snowden in a statement called Obama's proposal "a turning point" in the battle he and privacy advocates have been fighting.

"It marks the beginning of a new effort to reclaim our rights from the NSA and restore the public's seat at the table of government.," Snowden said in the statement.

In addition to ending the practice of collecting and storing data, a judge will have to approve each inquiry made by the agency into a database. The records would instead be held by private phone companies.

"Overall, I am confident that it allows us to do what is necessary in order to deal with the dangers of a terrorist attack, but does so in a way that addresses some of the concerns that people have raised," Obama said. "I'm looking forward to working with Congress to make sure that we go ahead and pass the enabling legislation quickly so that we can get on with the business of effective law enforcement."

Obama had given aides until March 28 — Friday — to develop legislation to end the NSA's ability to sweep up and store all kinds of telephone records.

Obama had weighed those options in recent days and the White House plans to consult with key members on Capitol Hill before putting forward a proposal in which the government "no longer collects or holds this data, but still ensures that the government has access to the information it needs to meet the national security needs his team has identified," according to a senior administration official.

To give Congress time to pass new authorizing legislation, Obama has directed his administration to renew the current program for another 90 days.

Meanwhile, the top Republican and Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee introduced their own bill Tuesday that would also end bulk data collection by the NSA and keep records at phone companies.

The House bill, however, would not require a judge's permission before the government seeks specific records from the phone companies during counter-terrorism investigations. The House plan would make judicial review retroactive. The bill is sponsored by the committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and the committee's top Democrat, Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, of Maryland.

Harley Geiger, a senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, said both the Obama and Rogers-Ruppersberger proposals are steps in the right direction but each has a "fatal flaw."

The House "bill would end bulk collection for most types of data, but the bill would allow intelligence agencies to obtain individuals' data without prior court approval," Geiger said. "The president's proposal, as described, would require intelligence agencies to get court approval before obtaining phone records, but the Obama proposal is only limited to phone records."

The Rogers-Ruppersberger bill, which has been dubbed the "End Bulk Collection Act," was also dismissed by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who said it would limit but not end bulk collection.

Sensenbrenner, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, is pushing his own legislative overhaul that would ban all bulk-records collection, including financial records and any other type of business records. It also requires a judge's order be obtained for any request for records and that the request be connected to an ongoing international terrorism investigation.

"The End Bulk Collection Act is a convoluted bill that accepts the administration's deliberate misinterpretation of the law," Sensenbrenner said.

The major telecommunications companies were silent Tuesday about the competing proposals.

But James Lewis, the director of the strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the telecoms remains "deeply concerned" about liability issues facing them, and still have a bad taste from the backlash during the George W. Bush administration after revelations that they cooperated with NSA in its warrantless wiretapping program.

"They don't want to go through what they went through with the warrantless wiretapping with the lawsuits and complaints and the bad publicity," Lewis said.

Obama's vow to end the NSA's ability to store phone data from millions of Americans was the most significant change he laid out his January address. At the time, he tasked the Justice Department and the intelligence community to come up with a plan within 60 days of who should hold these records.

But the president declined calls from some in Congress and civil libertarians to end the telephone data program outright.

He argued that the program — which his own intelligence review panel concluded has not helped foil a terrorist act — was an essential tool in keeping the homeland safe and must be maintained.

On Tuesday, Obama emphasized that he believes there are currently safeguards in place to prevent the misuse of bulk data by the government.

"But I recognize that people are concerned about what might happen in the future with that bulk data," he said. "This proposal would eliminate that concern."

Ahead of the start of his current trip to Europe, which in addition to the Nuclear Security Summit the Netherlands includes stops in Brussels and Rome, Obama was bracing to face criticism from world leaders and the European public about the Snowden revelations.

Obama on Tuesday argued that some of the reporting in Europe and the USA as a result of Snowden leaks has been "pretty sensationalized."

"But I recognize because of these revelations that there is a process that is taking place that we have to win back the trust not just of governments, but more importantly ordinary citizens," Obama said. "And that's not going to happen overnight."