Obama is modestly reining in NSA data collection

(Image credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

On Tuesday, the Obama administration is announcing new rules about how U.S. intelligence agencies manage the data they collect. The National Security Agency and other spy agencies will have to delete private information they collect about Americans that has no intelligence value, and do the same for foreigners in five years, The New York Times reports. Obama will also begin a regular, formal White House assessment of NSA spying on foreign leaders.

Many of the larger changes Obama discussed a year ago have yet to be implemented, for various reasons. For instance, the NSA is still collecting and storing telephone metadata on Americans, because phone companies are unable or willing to take on the secure data storage and retrieval responsibilities. "The companies are saying if you want us to do it, you must compel us to do it," a senior intelligence official tells The Times. "So we need to compel them" — or rather, Congress will have to compel them. Whether the GOP-led legislature will do so is an open question.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.