President Obama defers to Congress to end NSA phone tracking

President Barack Obama won’t end the government’s controversial collection of data about millions of Americans on his own, because he’d rather the matter be dealt with by Congress. “I’m still hopeful that we can actually get a bill passed,” President Obama said. “There is bipartisan support for the bill, and, as has been true in a lot of instances -- including on immigration -- my preference is always to actually get legislation passed because it’s a little longer lasting.” The programs needs to be continually reauthorized by the courts every 90 days.

If he wanted to, critics say, President Obama could simply end it by neglecting to have it renewed. Instead, he has made some minor changes to the structure of the program, such as limiting searches to records about people two steps removed from a target, instead of the previous three. Congress has struggled with legislation to effectively end the program and require the government to get data from private phone companies.