Obama confronts challenges of reforming collection of Americans’ phone records
By Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller, WashPost, Published: January 18
President Obama’s intention to end the government’s controversial practice of amassing the phone records of millions of Americans faces a tangle of technical, logistical and political problems that defy ready solutions and are largely beyond the president’s control.
Among the challenges is stiff resistance from phone companies that do not want to be told how long to hold their customers’ data if the government does not collect it, especially if that means longer than they do now.
The companies do not have the data-sifting capabilities of the National Security Agency, which holds the records and uses them to sift for terrorist connections.
The political challenges may be particularly daunting. The president says he wants to move the data out of the government’s hands. That has positioned him between two extremes. At one end is an odd mix of tea party Republicans and civil liberties Democrats who want the government to end its bulk collection of Americans’ records, not just shift where the data are stored. At the other end are powerful lawmakers, including the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, who have resisted any substantial changes.
(More here.)
President Obama’s intention to end the government’s controversial practice of amassing the phone records of millions of Americans faces a tangle of technical, logistical and political problems that defy ready solutions and are largely beyond the president’s control.
Among the challenges is stiff resistance from phone companies that do not want to be told how long to hold their customers’ data if the government does not collect it, especially if that means longer than they do now.
The companies do not have the data-sifting capabilities of the National Security Agency, which holds the records and uses them to sift for terrorist connections.
The political challenges may be particularly daunting. The president says he wants to move the data out of the government’s hands. That has positioned him between two extremes. At one end is an odd mix of tea party Republicans and civil liberties Democrats who want the government to end its bulk collection of Americans’ records, not just shift where the data are stored. At the other end are powerful lawmakers, including the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, who have resisted any substantial changes.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
I think life was easier when the community organizer was running for office, telling everyone what should be done.
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