The president will announces the end of the NSA's telephone metadata program. Obama revamps U.S. surveillance

President Barack Obama on Friday said the United States will stop collecting and storing telephone metadata but delivered a stern defense of the nation’s intelligence gathering practices.

Obama announced the changes in the National Security Agency’s telephone metadata program during a speech at the Justice Department, calling for an end to the government’s practice of storing a huge trove of information on Americans’ telephone calls.


“I believe we need a new approach,” Obama said. “I am therefore ordering a transition that will end the Section 215 bulk metadata program as it currently exists, and establish a mechanism that preserves the capabilities we need without the government holding this bulk metadata.”

( TRANSCRIPT: President Obama's remarks on NSA program)

The reforms are the most substantial public response by the White House to criticism at home and abroad over the scope of U.S. surveillance activities revealed in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Obama made the case that U.S. intelligence officials have not broken the law or spied on the calls or e-mails of “ordinary people.”

“In an extraordinarily difficult job, one in which actions are second-guessed, success is unreported, and failure can be catastrophic, the men and women of the intelligence community, including the NSA, consistently follow protocols designed to protect the privacy of ordinary people,” Obama said. “They are not abusing authorities in order to listen to your private phone calls, or read your emails.”

And yet Obama said the United States will not halt intelligence-gathering activities while the global threats remain. He said foreign governments — without naming any — continue trying to hack into U.S. government data. For this reason, Obama said, mobile phones are not allowed inside the White House Situation Room.

( PHOTOS: 15 great quotes on NSA spying)

“We cannot unilaterally disarm our intelligence agencies,” Obama said. “We know that the intelligence services of other countries — including some who feign surprise over the Snowden disclosures — are constantly probing our government and private sector networks, and accelerating programs to listen to our conversations, intercept our emails, or compromise our systems.”

Obama’s proposal pushes in the direction of keeping the call data in the private sector: either with phone companies themselves or a third-party which would pool data from all companies. He also raised the possibility that other intelligence agency capabilities might be able to replace the program.

Obama asked Attorney General Eric Holder and intelligence officials to come up with a detailed plan by March 28 for how to maintain the government’s ability to tap into the calling data.

In the meantime, Obama said every government search of telecommunications data will require review by the FISA court. Until now, NSA personnel have been able to request the data based on a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that phone numbers are tied to terrorist activity. However, no judge routinely reviewed those queries either before or after they were made.

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The president declared that the government will no longer access phone records more than two people removed from an individual officials are monitoring, down from three people removed under existing court orders.

Obama is also asking Congress to create a panel of public advocates that will monitor the FISA court process.

Obama has gone to significant lengths to calm overseas anger about the U.S. monitoring of foreign citizens, particularly foreign leaders whose private cell phones had been monitored by the NSA, according to documents leaked by Snowden.

Though Obama acknowledged Snowden by name, he said he is “not going to dwell on Mr. Snowden’s actions or motivations.”

( Also on POLITICO: Public 'all over the map' on NSA)

“If any individual who objects to government policy can take it in their own hands to publicly disclose classified information, then we will never be able to keep our people safe, or conduct foreign policy,” Obama said. “Moreover, the sensational way in which these disclosures have come out has often shed more heat than light, while revealing methods to our adversaries that could impact our operations in ways that we may not fully understand for years to come.”

And yet Obama criticized foreign governments that have criticized the United States after the Snowden leaks while privately acknowledging the U.S. has a responsibility to keep the world safe.

“A number of countries, including some who have loudly criticized the NSA, privately acknowledge that America has special responsibilities as the world’s only superpower,” Obama said, adding that some of those countries “themselves have relied on the information we obtain to protect their own people.”

Included in the directive Obama is issuing is language that makes clear the United States “does not use signals intelligence to indiscriminately collect” foreigners’ email and phone data, a senior administration official told reporters earlier Friday. Snowden’s documents showed the NSA had access to personal cell phone calls of a host of foreign leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Obama didn’t mention Merkel during the speech, but did make reference to “totalitarian states like East Germany,” where Merkel was raised.

“People around the world – regardless of their nationality – should know that the United States is not spying on ordinary people who don’t threaten our national security, and that we take their privacy concerns into account,” Obama said. “This applies to foreign leaders as well.”

Acceptable categories for gathering data, Obama said, include counterintelligence, counterterrorism, counter proliferation, cyber-security, sanctions evasion and protecting U.S. and friendly troops stationed abroad, Obama said.

”Unless there is a compelling national security purpose – we will not monitor the communications of heads of state and government of our close friends and allies,” Obama said. “And I’ve instructed my national security team, as well as the intelligence community, to work with foreign counterparts to deepen our coordination and cooperation in ways that rebuild trust going forward.”

Obama said “no one expects” Russia or China to be as transparent about their surveillance programs or citizens’ privacy as the United States, but added that “we are held to a different standard precisely because we have been at the forefront in defending personal privacy and human dignity.”

He called for the State Department to appoint a senior diplomat responsible for soothing U.S. relations abroad with respect to communications and will also appoint a senior administration official to implement privacy safeguards. And Obama tasked top aide John Podesta to lead a data and privacy review.

Obama’s plan to significantly alter the NSA’s phone metadata program appears to be largely in line with recommendations he received last month from a five-member outside group he appointed to conduct a broad review of the government’s surveillance efforts. The changes are likely to be welcomed by civil liberties and privacy advocates, as well as lawmakers who have pushed for an end to the government’s “bulk collection” of data.

However, setting up a workable system for storing the data in the private sector will be much easier said than done. Telecommunications companies have firmly opposed such plans and resisted requirements that they hold data in a specific form or for a certain length of time. Many privacy activists also oppose such rules, known as retention requirements.

Obama acknowledged it will be difficult to find a place to store the data that will keep it accessible to intelligence officials but outside of direct government control. He illustrated the debate he is having with himself about how best to address the situation.

“Relying solely on the records of multiple providers, for example, could require companies to alter their procedures in ways that raise new privacy concerns,” Obama said. “On the other hand, any third party maintaining a single, consolidated database would be carrying out what’s essentially a government function but with more expense, more legal ambiguity, potentially less accountability — all of which would have a doubtful impact on public confidence that their privacy is being protected.”

Such a system could also be technically complex, if companies continue to store the data themselves. Terrorism investigators fear that complexity could lead to delays in running down leads about potential plots.

Obama’s outside review group said one way to limit that complexity would be to have a private-sector clearinghouse or consortium store the data for all the companies so the government — armed with a judge’s order — could query it. However, the panel suggested that option be considered only if keeping the data with the individual telecom companies proved unworkable.

Some involved in the debate also have concerns that data stored in the private sector will be more vulnerable to hackers. At a Senate hearing this week, some lawmakers said they worried the call information could be subject to breaches in the same way Target and Neiman Marcus recently saw their credit card data compromised.

“I question whether or not the private sector has got the capability that the government sector has of protecting privacy,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said.

A private-sector-based system is also likely to require some legislation to make it function smoothly and protect privacy, experts said. Without such a measure, the additional data telecom firms would store could become subject to subpoena in run-of-the-mill litigation like business disputes and divorce cases.

Obama’s decision to move the program to the private sector was consistent with early press reports indicating he was leaning towards such a result. Earlier this week, however, news accounts quoting anonymous current and former intelligence officials said the president was not inclined to endorse plans to hold the data privately.

Obama spoke with his top national security officials sitting feet away. Holder, James Comey and John Brennan sat in the front row.

The roster of members of Congress, all seated in the second row of the audience for Obama’s remarks, included Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairmen of the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas) and his predecessor, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.). House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) also attended.

A blue floor-to-ceiling curtain covered the partially nude statues known as the Spirit of Justice behind the lectern in the Justice Department’s Great Hall. Eight American flags stood behind the lectern where Obama is to speak.

Darren Samuelsohn contributed to this report.