Obama Says NSA Will NOT Hold Data. So Should We Turn It Over To Stassi, KGB, Or Some Friend Of Obama? Feel Safer? This Is A Fool's Errand.

Capitol Report

3 things you need to know about Obama’s new spy proposals

January 17, 2014, 1:20 PM

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President Barack Obama on Friday called for major changes in U.S. spy operations. Here are three things you need to know about what he proposed. Read a recap of Obama’s speech, as live-blogged on Capitol Report.

First, Obama said he is ordering an end to the government’s bulk collection of metadata “as it currently exists.” But who’s going to hold that data instead? That’s unclear right now. “More work needs to be done to determine exactly how this system might work,” he said. “This will not be simple.”

Moving the data out of government hands will take time. But Obama said that effective immediately, intelligence officials will need a court order to access it. “The database can be queried only after a judicial finding, or in a true emergency,” he said.

Another immediate directive Obama announced: He said the U.S. would only pursue phone calls that are two steps removed from a number associated with a terrorist organization instead of three. As one sharp-eyed observer pointed out, that still means a lot of searches.

– Robert Schroeder