Phone Records: Obama

Obama: But Obama's highly anticipated intelligence recommendations left many key details unresolved, most notably who might take over as keeper of the vast trove of U.S. phone records. Final decisions on that and other major questions were left to the Justice Department and to intelligence agencies that oppose changing surveillance operations, and to a Congress that is divided about the future of the programs, according to Huffington Post. For now, the phone records will continue to reside with the government. But the NSA will need to get approval from the secretive Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court each time it wants to access the data, a more cumbersome process than currently required. Exceptions will be made in the event of a national security emergency, officials said and WASHINGTON - Tightening the reins on the nation's sweeping surveillance operations, President Barack Obama on Friday ordered new limits on the way intelligence officials access phone records from hundreds of millions of Americans and moved toward eventually stripping the massive data collection from the government's hands. If fully implemented, Obama's proposals would mark the most significant changes to the surveillance laws that were passed in reaction to the Sept. 11, 2011, terror attacks. While Obama has said he has welcomed the recent spying debate, it's unlikely to have happened without the national and international backlash following a wave of leaks from former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.