The March 28 deadline reflects the date that the current court authorization for the bulk collection expires. The government plans to continue its bulk collection program for at least three months. Multiple bills have been introduced, with proposals ranging from killing the program outright to adding more layers of oversight. The president's proposal would require congressional action, something that so far has seemed unlikely. 'After Snowden, there was a lot of mistrust, and we have to deal with that,' Rogers said. This proposal that's been presented to me would eliminate that concern.'Įdward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who worked as a systems analyst, leaked details of the government's secret phone records collection program last year. 'But I recognize that people were concerned about what might happen in the future with that bulk data. 'I want to emphasize once again that some of the dangers that people hypothesize when it came to bulk data, there were clear safeguards against,' Obama said Tuesday at a news conference in the Netherlands at the end of a nuclear security summit. Obama said officials offered an option that he thinks is workable and addresses concerns raised by the public. In January, Obama tasked his administration with coming up with new options to the telephone records program by March 28. Americans, Rogers said, don't want the government holding onto their data. 'We're changing the program based on a perception, not a reality,' Rogers said shortly before he introduced legislation that would end the program in its current form. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he believes the data is safer with the National Security Agency, even though he recommended it be moved from the agency's custody. Obama said that any alternatives to the government holding onto the phone records posed difficult problems and raised privacy issues. Instead, the government would ask phone companies to search their records for possible links to terrorism.

President Barack Obama intends to ask Congress to end the bulk collection of Americans' phone records. WASHINGTON (AP) - To assuage privacy concerns, the White House and some lawmakers are pushing forward with changes to a surveillance program that would leave the bulk storage of millions of Americans' telephone records in the hands of phone companies, even though they are convinced the information now held by the government is protected and question whether the changes would actually do more to protect privacy.

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