On January 17, 2014, President Obama announced broad reforms to the U.S. government’s practices with regard to the surveillance programs that have swept up massive amounts of phone records and related data.

Among these significant reforms are the cessation of surveillance on foreign leaders who are considered to be close allies of the United States, requiring NSA analysts to obtain permission from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before searching the database, placing limitations on the extent to which NSA agents may forage through the data and putting these phone records into the hands of a third party. President Obama has cautioned that the implementation of these changes will not be easy, and he has given his team until March 28, 2014 to come up with a transition plan.

For more information about the reforms announced by President Obama see this link:   http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-speech-obama-to-call-for-restructuring-of-nsas-surveillance-program/2014/01/17/e9d5a8ba-7f6e-11e3-95c6-0a7aa80874bc_story.html 

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