US presidential advisory panel expected to urge curbs on NSA spying
Changes likely to include White House review of spying on foreign leaders; agencies set to resist
A presidential advisory committee examining the operations of the National Security Agency says a programme to collect data on every phone call made in the US should continue, but under new restraints to increase privacy protections.
The committee's report also argues in favour of codifying and publicly announcing the steps the United States will take to protect the privacy of foreign citizens whose phone records, internet communications or movements are collected by the NSA.
We’re not leaving it to [national security chief] Jim Clapper any more
But it is unclear how far that effort would go, and intelligence officials have argued strenuously that they should be under few restrictions when tapping the communications of non-Americans abroad.
The advisory group is also expected to recommend that senior White House officials, including the president, directly review the list of foreign leaders whose communications are routinely monitored by the NSA.
President Barack Obama has apologised to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany for the NSA's monitoring of her calls over the past decade, and promised it had been halted and would not resume. But he refused to make the same promise to the leaders of Mexico and Brazil.
Administration officials say the White House has already taken over supervision of that programme.