Obama: US must 'win back the trust of ordinary citizens'

Obama: US must 'win back the trust of ordinary citizens' over data collection

President confirms plans to end NSA bulk telephone collection as House committee says it is close to reform bill deal

Spencer Ackerman in Washington and Julian Borger in The Hague

Barack Obama confirmed on Tuesday that the US plans to end the National Security Agency's systematic collection of Americans’ telephone records, as leaders of the House intelligence committee insisted they were close to a deal with the White House to revamp the surveillance program.

Under plans to be put forward by the Obama administration in the next few days, the NSA would end the so-called bulk collection of telephone records, and instead would be required to seek a new kind of court order to search data held by telecommunications companies.

The proposals come nine months after the practice was first disclosed by the Guardian, based on leaks from the whistleblower Edward Snowden. Obama conceded that the revelations had caused trust in the US to plunge around the world.

“We have got to win back the trust not just of governments, but, more importantly, of ordinary citizens. And that's not going to happen overnight, because there's a tendency to be sceptical of government and to be sceptical of the US intelligence services,” Obama said at a news conference in The Hague, where world leaders are gathered for a summit on nuclear security.

Obama said he believed the reform proposals presented to him by the US intelligence agencies were “workable”, and would “eliminate” the concerns of privacy campaigners. “I am confident that it allows us to do what is necessary in order to deal the threat of a terrorist attack, but does so in a way that addresses people's concerns,” he said.

Activists gave a cautious welcome to Obama's plans. Jameel Jaffer, the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote in an article for the Guardian: “The president is acknowledging that a surveillance program endorsed by all three branches of government, and in place for more than a decade, has not been able to survive public scrutiny. It's an acknowledgement that the intelligence agencies, the surveillance court and the intelligence committees struck a balance behind closed doors that could not be defended in public.”

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/25/obama-us-nsa-data-collection-trust