Congress Executive Branch Intelligence Surveillance & Privacy

President Obama Proposes to Limit Some NSA Surveillance

Wells Bennett
Thursday, December 5, 2013, 9:24 PM
That's the gist of tonight's report, from Politico's Josh Gerstein:  
President Barack Obama said Thursday that he'll be reining in some of the snooping conducted by the National Security Agency, but he did not detail what new limits he plans to impose on the embattled spy organization. "I'll be proposing some self-restraint on the NSA.

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That's the gist of tonight's report, from Politico's Josh Gerstein:  
President Barack Obama said Thursday that he'll be reining in some of the snooping conducted by the National Security Agency, but he did not detail what new limits he plans to impose on the embattled spy organization. "I'll be proposing some self-restraint on the NSA. And...to initiate some reforms that can give people more confidence, " Obama told Chris Matthews in an interview recorded for MSNBC's "Hardball." The president insisted that the NSA's work shows respect for the rights of Americans, but he conceded that its activities are often more intrusive when it comes to foreigners communicating overseas. "The N.S.A. actually does a very good job about not engaging in domestic surveillance, not reading people's emails, not listening to the contents of their phone calls. Outside of our borders, the NSA's more aggressive. It's not constrained by laws," Obama said.

Wells C. Bennett was Managing Editor of Lawfare and a Fellow in National Security Law at the Brookings Institution. Before coming to Brookings, he was an Associate at Arnold & Porter LLP.

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