Recovery signs lift Cameron's poll hopes
Signs of a fledgling economic recovery in Britain have boosted voter trust in Prime Minister David Cameron's financial stewardship, strengthening his prospects ahead of an election in 2015, a poll showed on Tuesday.
The Guardian/ICM survey said that 40% of voters trusted Cameron and his Conservatives on the economy, up sharply from 28% in June, and comfortably ahead of the opposition Labour party, whose economic credentials won approval from just 24% of those asked.
The health of the economy and political parties' perceived ability to nurse it back to sustained growth after three rocky years is likely to be the single most important factor in deciding who wins the 2015 election.
The economy has shown unexpected signs of improvement in recent months with the Bank of England forecasting it will grow by 0.6% during the current quarter, the same as between April and June, and that growth will reach an annual rate of 2.6% in two years' time.
Labour remains a few points ahead of the Conservatives in the opinion polls but has seen its lead shrink after better economic data, even though many economists believe it is too soon to talk of a sustained recovery and are concerned about a possible housing price bubble.
Tuesday's poll put Labour's overall support at 35%, a mere three percentage points higher than the Conservatives.
Cameron, who governs in coalition with the centre-left Liberal Democrats, has put the economy at the heart of his re-election strategy, hoping a strong recovery will materialise and create a feel-good factor that will allow his party to govern alone next time.
According to Peter Kellner, of pollster YouGov, an improving economy poses a problem for Labour leader Ed Miliband.
"Now that Britain's economy has started to recover, he is likely to face a prime minister who can copy one of the slogans that Barack Obama used last year to secure re-election," he wrote.
"The president likened America's economy to a car that his predecessors had driven into a ditch. 'I don't want to give them the keys back,' he said. 'They can't drive'."
Labour, which governed Britain from 1997 to 2010, was in power when the global financial crisis hit and says it was managing the economy well but was knocked off course by events.
The Conservatives say Labour left Britain with its biggest budget deficit since World War Two and cannot be trusted to manage it again anytime soon.
Alastair Campbell, who was former Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief communications adviser, said Labour had allowed the Conservatives to unfairly cast them as the creators of the economic turmoil that followed the financial crisis.
"Britain had 10 good years of growth and prosperity under Labour which is one of the many reasons we won three elections and stopped David Cameron winning a majority," he wrote on his blog.
ICM Research interviewed 1 001 adults by phone on August 9 and 11.
Blasts halt Iraq oil exports to Turkey
Militants on Tuesday bombed a major pipeline carrying oil from northern Iraq to Turkey, stopping exports, a senior official from the North Oil Company official said.
The blast occurred near the town of Albu Jahash in Nineveh province, the official said, adding that production is still continuing, but the oil is being stored instead of exported.
Repairing the pipeline is expected to take between one and three days, the official said.
The 970-kilometre (600-mile) pipeline runs from Iraq's northern oil hub of Kirkuk to the port of Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.
There have been dozens of attacks on the pipeline so far this year, disrupting northern exports.
Oil ministry spokesperson Assem Jihad said earlier this month that Iraq intends to build a new pipeline from Kirkuk to the Turkish border, because the existing one has been repeatedly attacked and to increase Iraq's export capacity.
Iraq is dependent on oil exports for the lion's share of its government income, and is seeking to dramatically ramp up its sales in the coming years to fund the reconstruction of its battered infrastructure.
NSA secrets leaked to 'fearless' journos
US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden said in an interview released on Tuesday he chose to divulge details of a vast US surveillance effort to journalists who reported "fearlessly" on controversial subjects.
Snowden, in the interview released by The New York Times, said he chose documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras and Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald because they were not cowed by the US government.
"After 9/11, many of the most important news outlets in America abdicated their role as a check to power the journalistic responsibility to challenge the excesses of government - for fear of being seen as unpatriotic and punished in the market during a period of heightened nationalism," Snowden was quoted as saying in an encrypted conversation with journalist Peter Maass for the Times Sunday magazine.
"Laura and Glenn are among the few who reported fearlessly on controversial topics throughout this period, even in the face of withering personal criticism, and resulted in Laura specifically becoming targeted by the very programmes involved in the recent disclosures."
He said Poitras "demonstrated the courage, personal experience and skill needed to handle what is probably the most dangerous assignment any journalist can be given reporting on the secret misdeeds of the most powerful government in the world making her an obvious choice".
Snowden, who was granted asylum in Russia after spending over five weeks in a Moscow airport transit zone, is said by his lawyers to now be at an undisclosed secret location.
The United States wants to put Snowden on trial for leaking details of vast American surveillance programmes, but Moscow has steadfastly refused to hand him over.
A former contractor, Snowden released details of secret National Security Agency programmes aimed at thwarting terrorism which sweep up vast amounts of phone and internet data.
Snowden said that when he met the two journalists in Hong Kong for a filmed interview, "I think they were annoyed that I was younger than they expected, and I was annoyed they had arrived too early, which complicated the initial verification".
He said Poitras "was more suspicious of me than I was of her, and I'm famously paranoid".
Snowden added that he was surprised that Greenwald did not agree to his requests to encrypt all communications.
"This is 2013, and a journalist who regularly reported on the concentration and excess of state power," he said.
"I was surprised to realise that there were people in news organisations who didn't recognise any unencrypted message sent over the internet is being delivered to every intelligence service in the world."
"In the wake of this year's disclosures, it should be clear that unencrypted journalist-source communication is unforgivably reckless."
Voters mad about NSA spying face battle
Americans are becoming increasingly concerned
about government invasion of privacy while investigating terrorism, and some
ordinary citizens are finding ways to push back. They are signing online
petitions and threatening lawsuits. Some are pressing their providers to be
upfront when data is shared with the government, which federal law allows as
long as the person isn't being investigated under an active court order.
The question is whether these anti-surveillance voters will be successful in creating a broader populist movement. Many lawmakers have defended the NSA surveillance programme a programme Congress itself reviewed and approved in secret.
And unlike the anti-war effort that rallied Democrats during President George W Bush's administration, and the tea party movement that galvanised conservatives in President Barack Obama's first term, government surveillance opponents tend to straddle party lines. The cause appeals to libertarian Republicans who don't like big government and progressive liberals who do but favour civil liberties. Together, these voters would have little in common otherwise.
Another complication is the potential of another terrorist attack. One spectacular act and public opinion could flip, much as it did after the 11 September 2001, terrorist attacks, back to favouring government surveillance. Politicians know this, with many of them opting to blast the Obama administration for not being more transparent but most opposing an end to broad surveillance powers.
"If in fact something happens, you're basically putting yourself in a position to look like you didn't do something when you should have. And that's got to be in the back of their head," said Ed Goeas, president of the Tarrance Group in Alexandria, Virginia, a Republican survey research and strategy company.
That leaves voter-activists with little to work with, even with national elections next year that expose one-third of the Senate and every member of the House of Representatives to the voters.
Constituents, lawmakers
"I don't believe it's going to be a driving issue" in the upcoming elections, Goeas added. "It's got to be the total picture" on national security that appeals to voters.
At issue is whether the government overstepped its bounds when it began collecting and searching the phone and Internet records of Americans to gather information on suspected terrorists overseas. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released late last month found that Americans are divided over whether they support the surveillance programmes revealed earlier this year, but most Americans 57% still say it's more important for the government to investigate terrorism than to put privacy first.
Like their constituents, lawmakers too are divided. Last month, a House proposal that essentially would have made the NSA phone collection programme illegal failed in a 217-205 vote that didn't fall along party lines. Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi were among the 217 who voted to spare the programme.
In the Senate, a small group of lawmakers namely Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall and Republican Senator Rand Paul is taking a stronger line in favour of civil liberties. But progress has been slow, with few co-sponsors joining their legislative proposals to limit NSA spying powers. Meanwhile, such influential senators as Democrat Dianne Feinstein have defended the programme and said Edward Snowden, who leaked details of the NSA programmes, is guilty of treason.
Doug Hattaway, a Washington-based Democratic strategist, said the reluctance by most lawmakers to take sides isn't surprising, considering that most Americans say they want both security and privacy.
"I don't see Democrats benefiting from joining forces with libertarians," he said. "If voters are looking for balance, I wouldn't hop on the bandwagon with Rand Paul."
Not taking it lying down
Another challenge for surveillance foes is that industry isn't exactly fighting back. Technology and phone companies often say they are prohibited from divulging details about government surveillance requests, but that's only partially true. Federal law prohibits alerting customers when they are surveillance subjects as long as a court order remains in effect. But not all gag orders last forever.
But that hasn't stopped some Americans from challenging the surveillance system.
Charlotte Scot, a 66-year-old artist from Old Lyme, Connecticut, is a liberal who doesn't take things lying down. She moved to Canada in protest when Bush was re-elected in 2004.
So when Scot heard that major telecommunications providers have been turning over data about Americans' phone calls to the government since 2006, Scot demanded that her own phone company tell her what, if anything, it had shared about her.
She soon received a non-response from an unnamed customer service representative informing her how to opt out of its marketing programme, which only made Scot angrier.
"Dear Anonymous," Scot fired back in an e-mail, "I have always opted out of all advertising e-mails. ... However, my question was not about advertising. It was about what information AT&T turns over to the federal government and NSA. I appreciate an answer to this question."
'People are like sheep'
AT&T eventually responded with a link to its privacy policy and a promise that, while it doesn't comment on matters of national security, "we do comply with the law".
When AT&T wouldn't tell Scot whether her information had ever been shared with the government, chances are that's because it didn't want to not because it couldn't.
AT&T spokesperson Michael Balmoris declined to comment on Scot's case in particular or matters of national security. "We value our customers' privacy and work hard to protect it by ensuring compliance with the law in all respects," he said.
Meanwhile, Scot says she can't understand why other customers are not just as angry. She's now looking to switch providers, and has downloaded a mobile application called Seecyrpt that offers encrypted phone calls for $3 a month. But she knows it's unlikely that a majority of Americans will follow her lead.
"I'm just one of these people who gets riled about things," she said. "People are like sheep."
The question is whether these anti-surveillance voters will be successful in creating a broader populist movement. Many lawmakers have defended the NSA surveillance programme a programme Congress itself reviewed and approved in secret.
And unlike the anti-war effort that rallied Democrats during President George W Bush's administration, and the tea party movement that galvanised conservatives in President Barack Obama's first term, government surveillance opponents tend to straddle party lines. The cause appeals to libertarian Republicans who don't like big government and progressive liberals who do but favour civil liberties. Together, these voters would have little in common otherwise.
Another complication is the potential of another terrorist attack. One spectacular act and public opinion could flip, much as it did after the 11 September 2001, terrorist attacks, back to favouring government surveillance. Politicians know this, with many of them opting to blast the Obama administration for not being more transparent but most opposing an end to broad surveillance powers.
"If in fact something happens, you're basically putting yourself in a position to look like you didn't do something when you should have. And that's got to be in the back of their head," said Ed Goeas, president of the Tarrance Group in Alexandria, Virginia, a Republican survey research and strategy company.
That leaves voter-activists with little to work with, even with national elections next year that expose one-third of the Senate and every member of the House of Representatives to the voters.
Constituents, lawmakers
"I don't believe it's going to be a driving issue" in the upcoming elections, Goeas added. "It's got to be the total picture" on national security that appeals to voters.
At issue is whether the government overstepped its bounds when it began collecting and searching the phone and Internet records of Americans to gather information on suspected terrorists overseas. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released late last month found that Americans are divided over whether they support the surveillance programmes revealed earlier this year, but most Americans 57% still say it's more important for the government to investigate terrorism than to put privacy first.
Like their constituents, lawmakers too are divided. Last month, a House proposal that essentially would have made the NSA phone collection programme illegal failed in a 217-205 vote that didn't fall along party lines. Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi were among the 217 who voted to spare the programme.
In the Senate, a small group of lawmakers namely Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall and Republican Senator Rand Paul is taking a stronger line in favour of civil liberties. But progress has been slow, with few co-sponsors joining their legislative proposals to limit NSA spying powers. Meanwhile, such influential senators as Democrat Dianne Feinstein have defended the programme and said Edward Snowden, who leaked details of the NSA programmes, is guilty of treason.
Doug Hattaway, a Washington-based Democratic strategist, said the reluctance by most lawmakers to take sides isn't surprising, considering that most Americans say they want both security and privacy.
"I don't see Democrats benefiting from joining forces with libertarians," he said. "If voters are looking for balance, I wouldn't hop on the bandwagon with Rand Paul."
Not taking it lying down
Another challenge for surveillance foes is that industry isn't exactly fighting back. Technology and phone companies often say they are prohibited from divulging details about government surveillance requests, but that's only partially true. Federal law prohibits alerting customers when they are surveillance subjects as long as a court order remains in effect. But not all gag orders last forever.
But that hasn't stopped some Americans from challenging the surveillance system.
Charlotte Scot, a 66-year-old artist from Old Lyme, Connecticut, is a liberal who doesn't take things lying down. She moved to Canada in protest when Bush was re-elected in 2004.
So when Scot heard that major telecommunications providers have been turning over data about Americans' phone calls to the government since 2006, Scot demanded that her own phone company tell her what, if anything, it had shared about her.
She soon received a non-response from an unnamed customer service representative informing her how to opt out of its marketing programme, which only made Scot angrier.
"Dear Anonymous," Scot fired back in an e-mail, "I have always opted out of all advertising e-mails. ... However, my question was not about advertising. It was about what information AT&T turns over to the federal government and NSA. I appreciate an answer to this question."
'People are like sheep'
AT&T eventually responded with a link to its privacy policy and a promise that, while it doesn't comment on matters of national security, "we do comply with the law".
When AT&T wouldn't tell Scot whether her information had ever been shared with the government, chances are that's because it didn't want to not because it couldn't.
AT&T spokesperson Michael Balmoris declined to comment on Scot's case in particular or matters of national security. "We value our customers' privacy and work hard to protect it by ensuring compliance with the law in all respects," he said.
Meanwhile, Scot says she can't understand why other customers are not just as angry. She's now looking to switch providers, and has downloaded a mobile application called Seecyrpt that offers encrypted phone calls for $3 a month. But she knows it's unlikely that a majority of Americans will follow her lead.
"I'm just one of these people who gets riled about things," she said. "People are like sheep."
Kerry defends NSA surveillance programs
US Secretary of State John Kerry defended the
National Security Agency surveillance programs on Monday and downplayed their
impact on US efforts to deepen relations with two key allies in Latin America.
Brazil and Colombia, two of the United States' closest friends in the region, have been rankled by reports that citizens of Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and other countries were among the targets of a massive NSA operation to secretly gather information about phone calls and Internet communications worldwide.
The disclosures were made by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
Kerry sought to play down the rift during a press conference in Bogota before heading to Brazil on his first trip to South America as secretary of state.
"Frankly, we work on a huge number of issues and this was in fact a very small part of the overall conversation and one in which I'm confident I was able to explain precisely that this has received the support of all three branches of our government," Kerry said.
"It has been completely conducted under our Constitution and the law. ... The president has taken great steps in the last few days ... to reassure people of the US intentions here."
‘Hotpoint issues’
He referenced the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. "It's obvious to everybody that this is a dangerous world we're living in ... we are necessarily engaged in a very complex effort to prevent terrorists from taking innocent lives."
Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin said Colombia officials had travelled to Washington to learn more about the surveillance program. "We have received the necessary assurances to continue to work on this," she said through a translator.
In her opening remarks, Holguin said she appreciated Kerry's efforts to restart the Mideast peace talks.
Kerry said he doesn't think the recent flap over Israeli settlement announcements will derail the second round of Mideast peace talks this week in the region.
Israel approved building nearly 1 200 more settlement homes Sunday the third settlement announcement in a week. It fuelled Palestinian fears of a new Israeli construction spurt under the cover of US-sponsored negotiations.
"The announcements with respect to settlements were to some degree expected because we have known that there was going to be a continuation of some building in certain places," Kerry said. "And I think the Palestinians understand that. I think one of the announcements was outside of that expectation and that's being discussed right now."
He restated the US position that it views the settlements as illegitimate. He said the recent controversy underscored the importance of getting to the negotiating table quickly and resolving the questions with respect to settlements.
"Once you have security and borders solved, you have resolved the question of settlements," he said. "With the negotiation of major issues, these kind of hotpoint issues ... are eliminated as the kind of flashpoints that they may be viewed today."
He said he expected to talk with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the issue later today or tomorrow. "I'm sure we will work out a path forward."
‘Success story’
Kerry arrived late on Sunday in Bogota, the Colombian capital, at a time when the country is holding peace talks to end a half century-old conflict with the Western Hemisphere's most potent rebel army.
The rebel force has diminished in strength thanks in considerable measure to US military and intelligence support. Kerry's discussions in Colombia also focused on trade, energy and counternarcotics and he met with Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos.
"Colombia is a success story," Kerry said. "The Santos administration has taken a very courageous and very necessary and very imaginative effort to seek a political solution to one of the world's longest conflicts."
Kerry began the day by having breakfast with two negotiators from the Colombian government, which has been conducting peace talks in Havana, Cuba, with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia since last year.
Formed in the 1960s, the Farc is the oldest active guerrilla band in the Western Hemisphere. Observers say the Farc currently has about 8 000 armed fighters.
After breakfast at his hotel, Kerry visited a gymnasium where members of the Colombia police and army, many who have lost limbs in the conflict, were playing rugby in wheelchairs reinforced with hard plastic instead of spokes. The chairs were designed to take a beating and during the game, and some players collided so violently that their chairs overturned on the court.
Kerry rolled up one of his pants legs, a national show of support for those who have lost their limbs in the fighting.
Before leaving for Brazil, Kerry visited the headquarters of the Colombian National Police Counter-Narcotics Directorate for a briefing on the US-Colombia partnership on fighting drugs, progress that has been made during the past decade, and an update on Colombia's efforts to share its expertise in security work with other countries in the region.
Colombia has helped to train more than 13 000 international police personnel from 25 Latin American countries and more than 20 other countries since 2009.
According to the State Department, Colombia has seen a 53% reduction in the cultivation of coca since 2007. Last year, Colombian authorities reported a record seizure of 279 metric tons of cocaine and cocaine products in the country and abroad.
The Colombian government has increasingly assumed operational and financial responsibility for many US-backed drug-fighting programs, has worked to dramatically reduce kidnappings and political assassinations and disrupt illegal narcotics trafficking with the help of more than $8.5bn from the US since 2000.
But US assistance to Colombia has been gradually decreasing, falling from $287 million in fiscal 2008 to $161 million in fiscal 2012.
Brazil and Colombia, two of the United States' closest friends in the region, have been rankled by reports that citizens of Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and other countries were among the targets of a massive NSA operation to secretly gather information about phone calls and Internet communications worldwide.
The disclosures were made by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
Kerry sought to play down the rift during a press conference in Bogota before heading to Brazil on his first trip to South America as secretary of state.
"Frankly, we work on a huge number of issues and this was in fact a very small part of the overall conversation and one in which I'm confident I was able to explain precisely that this has received the support of all three branches of our government," Kerry said.
"It has been completely conducted under our Constitution and the law. ... The president has taken great steps in the last few days ... to reassure people of the US intentions here."
‘Hotpoint issues’
He referenced the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. "It's obvious to everybody that this is a dangerous world we're living in ... we are necessarily engaged in a very complex effort to prevent terrorists from taking innocent lives."
Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin said Colombia officials had travelled to Washington to learn more about the surveillance program. "We have received the necessary assurances to continue to work on this," she said through a translator.
In her opening remarks, Holguin said she appreciated Kerry's efforts to restart the Mideast peace talks.
Kerry said he doesn't think the recent flap over Israeli settlement announcements will derail the second round of Mideast peace talks this week in the region.
Israel approved building nearly 1 200 more settlement homes Sunday the third settlement announcement in a week. It fuelled Palestinian fears of a new Israeli construction spurt under the cover of US-sponsored negotiations.
"The announcements with respect to settlements were to some degree expected because we have known that there was going to be a continuation of some building in certain places," Kerry said. "And I think the Palestinians understand that. I think one of the announcements was outside of that expectation and that's being discussed right now."
He restated the US position that it views the settlements as illegitimate. He said the recent controversy underscored the importance of getting to the negotiating table quickly and resolving the questions with respect to settlements.
"Once you have security and borders solved, you have resolved the question of settlements," he said. "With the negotiation of major issues, these kind of hotpoint issues ... are eliminated as the kind of flashpoints that they may be viewed today."
He said he expected to talk with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the issue later today or tomorrow. "I'm sure we will work out a path forward."
‘Success story’
Kerry arrived late on Sunday in Bogota, the Colombian capital, at a time when the country is holding peace talks to end a half century-old conflict with the Western Hemisphere's most potent rebel army.
The rebel force has diminished in strength thanks in considerable measure to US military and intelligence support. Kerry's discussions in Colombia also focused on trade, energy and counternarcotics and he met with Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos.
"Colombia is a success story," Kerry said. "The Santos administration has taken a very courageous and very necessary and very imaginative effort to seek a political solution to one of the world's longest conflicts."
Kerry began the day by having breakfast with two negotiators from the Colombian government, which has been conducting peace talks in Havana, Cuba, with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia since last year.
Formed in the 1960s, the Farc is the oldest active guerrilla band in the Western Hemisphere. Observers say the Farc currently has about 8 000 armed fighters.
After breakfast at his hotel, Kerry visited a gymnasium where members of the Colombia police and army, many who have lost limbs in the conflict, were playing rugby in wheelchairs reinforced with hard plastic instead of spokes. The chairs were designed to take a beating and during the game, and some players collided so violently that their chairs overturned on the court.
Kerry rolled up one of his pants legs, a national show of support for those who have lost their limbs in the fighting.
Before leaving for Brazil, Kerry visited the headquarters of the Colombian National Police Counter-Narcotics Directorate for a briefing on the US-Colombia partnership on fighting drugs, progress that has been made during the past decade, and an update on Colombia's efforts to share its expertise in security work with other countries in the region.
Colombia has helped to train more than 13 000 international police personnel from 25 Latin American countries and more than 20 other countries since 2009.
According to the State Department, Colombia has seen a 53% reduction in the cultivation of coca since 2007. Last year, Colombian authorities reported a record seizure of 279 metric tons of cocaine and cocaine products in the country and abroad.
The Colombian government has increasingly assumed operational and financial responsibility for many US-backed drug-fighting programs, has worked to dramatically reduce kidnappings and political assassinations and disrupt illegal narcotics trafficking with the help of more than $8.5bn from the US since 2000.
But US assistance to Colombia has been gradually decreasing, falling from $287 million in fiscal 2008 to $161 million in fiscal 2012.
US sets up surveillance review body
The Obama administration on Monday launched a
formal review of its electronic intelligence gathering that has come under
widespread criticism since leaks by a former spy agency contractor.
The Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies will examine the technical and policy issues that arise from rapid advances in global telecommunications, the White House said in a statement.
The group will assess whether US data collection "optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorised disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust," the statement said.
The high-level group of outside experts has 60 days to deliver its interim findings. A final report and recommendations are due on 15 December.
A separate statement by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper confirmed the review. Neither the White House nor Clapper released details on the size or composition of the panel.
Public trust
In a news conference at the White House on Friday, President Barack Obama vowed to improve oversight of surveillance and restore public trust in the government's programs.
The formal review is one of four measures unveiled by Obama, who said he had ordered a review of the surveillance programs before ex-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked secret documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post.
Obama's other measures include plans to work with Congress to pursue reforms of Section 215 of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act that governs the collection of so-called "metadata" such as phone records, and reform of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which considers requests from law enforcement authorities on intelligence-gathering targets.
Obama also vowed to provide more details about the NSA programs to try to restore any public trust damaged by the Snowden disclosures.
Civil liberty groups demanded more details on Obama's plans, but WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has called the announcement "a victory of sorts for Edward Snowden and his many supporters".
The Obama administration has vigorously pursued Snowden to bring him back to the United States to face espionage charges for leaking details of US surveillance programs to the media. Snowden is now in Russia, where he has been granted a year's asylum.
The Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies will examine the technical and policy issues that arise from rapid advances in global telecommunications, the White House said in a statement.
The group will assess whether US data collection "optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorised disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust," the statement said.
The high-level group of outside experts has 60 days to deliver its interim findings. A final report and recommendations are due on 15 December.
A separate statement by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper confirmed the review. Neither the White House nor Clapper released details on the size or composition of the panel.
Public trust
In a news conference at the White House on Friday, President Barack Obama vowed to improve oversight of surveillance and restore public trust in the government's programs.
The formal review is one of four measures unveiled by Obama, who said he had ordered a review of the surveillance programs before ex-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked secret documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post.
Obama's other measures include plans to work with Congress to pursue reforms of Section 215 of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act that governs the collection of so-called "metadata" such as phone records, and reform of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which considers requests from law enforcement authorities on intelligence-gathering targets.
Obama also vowed to provide more details about the NSA programs to try to restore any public trust damaged by the Snowden disclosures.
Civil liberty groups demanded more details on Obama's plans, but WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has called the announcement "a victory of sorts for Edward Snowden and his many supporters".
The Obama administration has vigorously pursued Snowden to bring him back to the United States to face espionage charges for leaking details of US surveillance programs to the media. Snowden is now in Russia, where he has been granted a year's asylum.
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