A new day at the NSA

[Commentary] Individually, the concrete steps President Barack Obama announced toward reforming the National Security Agency's surveillance programs were modest. Taken together, though, they signal the end of an era of unfettered escalation in US intelligence-gathering.

The President didn't cancel any existing surveillance programs; indeed, he reaffirmed the government's argument that telephone metadata should still be collected -- though with new safeguards. To many civil liberties advocates, his cautious moves were disappointing. But while Obama's practical steps were small, the conceptual steps were large. Instead of accepting the doctrine that a global war against terrorists justifies almost any expansion of information-gathering, he said the entire U.S. intelligence enterprise should be subject to more public scrutiny and more stringent cost-benefit tests.