President Obama’s NSA copout

[Commentary] A new Pew poll reveals that President Barack Obama’s highly touted speech on proposed reforms of the National Security Agency had “little impact on skeptical public.” Half of those contacted said they had not heard of the speech; and of the 41 percent who had heard “a little bit,” the overwhelming view is that the president’s proposed changes will make little difference in privacy protection or on the ability of the government to fight terrorism. The White House has had over seven months to react to the drip, drip, drip of Snowden revelations.

Besides tasking the entire US security apparatus to review its practices and programs, the president established an outside commission (Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies) of supposed experts to evaluate NSA programs, and he had prior access to the just released findings of an independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Beyond that, for months, congressional proponents and opponents of NSA practices have bombarded the administration with demands. And finally, belatedly, the president took counsel from CEOs of top US high-tech companies. Tough groups and tough issues to mediate, right? But that’s what we pay presidents to do; and that’s what makes President Obama equivocation both deficient and dismaying.

For this essay, three issues will be taken up as illustrative of the larger copout theme:

• The future of the so-called metadata program -- The President announced in his speech that the metadata collection program plays a “vital role” in protecting the nation against terrorism. Still, he decided to end the program “as it presently exists.”
• Extension of privacy rights to non-Americans -- The same puzzling uncertainty emerges with regard to the president’s commitment to extend to non-Americans the same privacy rights enjoyed by US citizens. Thus, he promised that the NSA would no longer monitor communications of “heads of state and governments of our close friends and allies.” Seemingly a vital new commitment, this statement leads to a policy morass.
• Creation of an independent voice to appear before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) -- The President also endorsed a proposal to create a public advocacy role in the FISC appeal process. But once again, the details are fuzzy. His commission had recommended a single officer to provide an independent voice before the court -- something President Obama himself had seemed to advocate in earlier speeches. But his specific proposal was for a panel that would only take part in “significant” cases that present “novel issues of law.” Left unclear was who determines such circumstances and what authority such a body of lawyers would be given.

[Barfield is a resident scholar at AEI who researches international trade policy]