Obama Meets Panel Reviewing U.S. Surveillance Programs

By Margaret Talev and Mike Dorning - Aug 28, 2013
President Barack Obama met for the first time yesterday with a panel he requested to review U.S. collection of telephone and Internet data, according to a White House statement that identified the group’s members.

The panel includes Richard Clarke, a former U.S. cybersecurity adviser; Michael Morell, a former deputy CIA director; Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor; Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor; and Peter Swire, who served earlier on Obama’s National Economic Council.

The review group was among a series of steps Obama announced at an Aug. 9 White House news conference to quell growing public and congressional criticism of programs that scour data on communications by U.S. citizens to look for links to terrorist activity.

“It’s not enough for me as president, to have confidence in these programs,” Obama said at the news conference. “The American people need to have confidence in them as well.”

The panel will provide interim findings to Obama within 60 days to be followed by a final report, according to the White House statement. The group’s goal, according to the statement, is to examine how the U.S. “can employ its technical collection capabilities in a way that optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while respecting our commitment to privacy and civil liberties.”

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/obama-meets-panel-reviewing-u-s-surveillance-programs.html

Obama’s ‘Outside Experts’ For NSA Review Are Former Intel And White House Staffers

ABC reports that the Obama administration’s surveillance review panel will include former intelligence and White House staffers, including Michael Morell, Richard Clarke, Cass Sunstein and Peter Swire. An official announcement of the members of the panel is expected soon.

The review panel was first announced in a White House press conference on Aug. 9, when Obama said the administration would form “a high-level group of outside experts to review our entire intelligence and communications technologies.”

Privacy advocates aren’t happy with the composition of the group revealed so far. Some privacy groups believe that the White House will insist on all members having top secret clearances, effectively barring most independent privacy watchdogs from consideration for the panel.

Amie Stepanovich, director of the domestic surveillance project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) found the choices reported by ABC troubling:

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/22/obamas-outside-experts-for-nsa-review-are-former-intel-and-white-house-staffers/