Obama Made Biggest Decisions on Surveillance Night Before Speech
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President Barack Obama wrestled with his decision to end U.S. government storage of private phone data until hours before his speech yesterday announcing plans for the nation’s surveillance programs, said Ben Rhodes, the president’s deputy national security adviser.
The administration aims to bring a proposal on data storage to Congress by the end of March, when the program expires, Rhodes said. The program might also be phased out, he said, if existing efforts can sufficiently track terrorists.