Obama's NSA Speech: Five Burning Questions - NBCNews

Obama's NSA speech: Five burning questions
By Mark Murray, Senior Political Editor, NBC News
1/17/14

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President Barack Obama’s speech Friday outlined new changes to national intelligence gathering practices, but it left out a lot of specifics.

While the proposals would reduce some of the latitude given to the National Security Agency in the name of homeland security, will they be enough to assuage a skeptical public? What’s Congress’ role in approving or implementing the president’s plan? And what does this mean for irked foreign allies?

Here are five big questions left in the wake of his proposal:

1. Who will store the metadata?

Perhaps the biggest news from Obama’s speech was his call for the U.S. government to no longer house the bulk data of phone records – or metadata – and give that to another entity. The rub, however, is that even the president doesn’t know what that other entity should be.

In his speech, Obama recognized that accessing the records through phone and internet companies could raise new privacy concerns, and he said forming an entirely new third-party organization could create legal ambiguities. So he has asked for time to come up with a solution.

"I have instructed the intelligence community and Attorney General to … develop options for a new approach that can match the capabilities and fill the gaps that <the NSA program> was designed to address without the government holding this metadata,” he said. “They will report back to me with options for alternative approaches before the program comes up for reauthorization on March 28."

2. Will Congress act?...

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