Although President Barack Obama has banned US eavesdropping on leaders of friendly nations and placed restrictions on the National Security Agency’s vast collection of personal data, critics say his reform initiative does not go far enough.
The Washington Post, which has been in the forefront (along with Britain’s Guardian) of going public with whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA’s far-reaching global surveillance operations, commented that Obama’s curbs rely on “an unusually narrow definition of spying”.
It went on to say that the changes announced by Obama on Friday would allow continued, or even expanded, collection of personal data from billions of people around the world, Americans and foreign citizens alike. The paper also noted that Obama “avoided almost entirely any discussion of overseas intelligence collection that he authorised on his own, under Executive Order 12333, without legislative or judicial supervision”.
In his much-anticipated speech, Obama said he was placing new limits on the way intelligence officials access phone records from hundreds of millions of Americans and was moving towards eventually stripping the massive data collection from the Government’s hands.
The American Civil liberties Union (AClU) commented that Obama addressed only the bulk collection of call records, and not any of the other bulk collection programmes revealed by the media. “That is a glaring omission. The President needs to embrace structural reforms that will protect us from all forms of bulk collection and that will make future overreach less likely,” said AClU’s National Security Project attorney Alexander Abdo.
The New York Times commented that while Obama spoke eloquently of the need to balance the nation’s security with personal privacy and civil liberties, many of his reforms were “frustratingly short on specifics and vague on implementation”.
Obama, in his speech relating to sharp overseas criticism of the widespread American surveillance, claimed the US’s unique intelligence collection capabilities “help protect not only our nation, but our friends and our allies, as well”.
As for leaders of US’s close friends and allies, Obama said he would “pick up the phone and call them, rather than turning to surveillance” if he wanted to know what they think about an issue. He also maintained that the US respects the privacy of ordinary citizens in other countries.
Obama said his new presidential directive “makes clear that the United States only uses signals intelligence for legitimate national security purposes, and not for the purpose of indiscriminately reviewing the emails or phone calls of ordinary folks”. Such data would be used only for the purposes of “counterintelligence, counterterrorism, counter-proliferation, cybersecurity, force protection for our troops and our allies, and combating transnational crime, including sanctions evasion”.
At the same time, Obama made clear that “US intelligence agencies will continue to gather information about the intentions of Governments —as opposed to ordinary citizens — around the world, in the same way that the intelligence services of every other nation does”.
“We will not apologise simply because our services may be more effective. But heads of state and Government with whom we work closely, and on whose cooperation we depend, should feel confident that we are treating them as real partners. And the changes I’ve ordered do just that,” he added.