Obama’s Limits on Phone Records

[Commentary] If President Barack Obama really wants to end the bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records, he doesn’t need to ask the permission of Congress, as he said he would do. He can just end it himself, immediately.

That’s what Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, urged him to do. “The president could end bulk collection once and for all on Friday by not seeking reauthorization of this program,” Chairman Leahy said. Ending bulk collection now wouldn’t undermine Obama’s proposal to Congress. In fact, if his promise is matched by the final details (which are not yet available), it could be an important and positive break from the widespread invasion of privacy secretly practiced by the National Security Agency for years. Getting a law to create strong judicial oversight of data collection would be a check on the ambitions of future presidents. But once the question is tossed into the maelstrom of Congress, where one party routinely opposes anything the president wants, the limits could be delayed, or diluted, or just killed. And while lawmakers wring their hands, the invasion of privacy will continue. Continuing the current surveillance program while lawmakers argue is not the way to begin winning back the country’s trust.