Washington: President Barack Obama is expected to endorse changes to the way the government collects millions of Americans' phone records for possible future surveillance, but he'll leave many of the specific details to Congress, according to three US officials familiar with the White House intelligence review.
In a highly anticipated speech on Friday, Obama is also expected to announce broader oversight of the process that helps determine which foreign leaders the US government monitors.
And he's likely to back increased privacy protections for foreign citizens, a step aimed at soothing international anger over US surveillance programs.
The speech marks the culmination of a monthslong review sparked by former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden, who leaked classified documents about the secret surveillance programs last year.
Obama's move would thrust much of the decision-making on Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act toward Congress, which is deeply divided over the future of the surveillance apparatus.
And members of Congress are in no hurry to quickly enact broad changes.
In another revelation about NSA activities, The New York Times reported yesterday that the agency has implanted software in nearly 100,000 computers around the world - but not in the United States - that allows the US to conduct surveillance on those machines.
The NSA calls the effort an "active defense" and has used the technology to monitor units of the Chinese Army, the Russian military, drug cartels, trade institutions inside the European Union and sometime US partners against terrorism like Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan, the Times reported.
White House officials yesterday cautioned that the review Obama has been conducting is not complete and that the president could make additional decisions in the coming days.
Obama is reviewing more than 40 recommendations from a presidential commission.
The US judiciary has objected to one proposal Obama has indicated he supports: putting an independent privacy advocate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which currently hears only from the government.
Speaking for the entire judiciary, US District Judge John D. Bates said yesterday that appointing an independent advocate to the secret court is unnecessary and possibly counterproductive.
Officials familiar with the White House review say another panel recommendation that has proven challenging for Obama is one to strip the NSA of its authority to hold phone records from millions of Americans.
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