Obama’s N.S.A. Strategy: Over to You, Congress

“On all of these issues, I am open to working with Congress to insure that we build a broad consensus for how to move forward, and am confident that we can shape an approach that meets our security needs while upholding the civil liberties of every American.”

That was President Obama today, delivering his much anticipated policy response to Edward Snowden’s revelations and to last month’s report by his own Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. Credit where credit is due: some of the President’s proposals went further than I had suggested in a post on Thursday that was based on some news reports about the speech. The main takeaway from Obama’s speech, though, was that the White House is seeking to toss this hot potato to Congress. And since Congress is hopelessly divided, it is perfectly possible that nothing very meaningful will change.

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