Obama's 'major' NSA reform proposals are about what you'd expect

I know. Throughout the ongoing NSA scandal you've been thinking one thing: What this situation needs is more involvement from someone who's completely unbiased - someone like Eric Holder. Well congratulations! This morning Obama will announce his proposed NSA 'reforms' and it looks like your Holder-based dreams are about to come true.

According to Reuters, Obama's proposals are pretty much the big pile of 'nothing' you'd expect.

President Barack Obama will announce on Friday a major overhaul of a controversial National Security Agency program that collects vast amounts of basic telephone call data on foreigners and Americans, a senior Obama administration official said. In an 11 a.m. (1600 GMT) speech at the Justice Department, Obama will say he is ordering a transition that will significantly change the handling of what is known as the telephone “metadata” program from the way the NSA currently handles it. …

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In a nod to privacy advocates, Obama will say he has decided that the government should not hold the bulk telephone metadata, a decision that could frustrate some intelligence officials. In addition, he will order that effectively immediately, “We will take steps to modify the program so that a judicial finding is required before we query the database,” said the senior official, who revealed details of the speech on condition of anonymity. While a presidential advisory panel had recommended that the bulk data be controlled by a third party such as the telephone companies, Obama will not offer a specific proposal for who should store the data in the future.

In other words, after the "major overhaul" Obama will keep the datamining going, he'll just make sure the data is kept somewhere other than NSA HQ. The whole "judicial finding" thing is essentially meaningless, since we already have a set of secret - and incredibly compliant - FISA court judges that are doing pretty much whatever the NSA asks of them. Why would we assume that the new "judicial findings" would set any higher standard than the ones we already have? If these decisions are still being made behind closed doors, it's not really a change at all. As you may have noticed, all of this seems to pertain only to the telephone metadata. There's no mention of the administration's various other 4th Amendment transgressions, such as the Prism program which monitors internet traffic, email, etc. If you're wondering just how the database is going to be relocated, or where it will wind up, or who will be handling it, you're going to be disappointed. The President has no idea. At least, if he does, he's not sharing it. In an obviously heartfelt and completely earnest effort to find a solution, the administration has decided to get its top law man involved.

Obama has asked Attorney General Eric Holder and the intelligence community to report back to him before the program comes up for reauthorization on March 28 on how to preserve the necessary capabilities of the program, without the government holding the metadata.

Hey, you never want to let a crisis go to waste, right? If the people are demanding that the government back off of its multitudinous domestic spying programs, you'd better get something in return. Why not use the scenario to put the man who may be history's most ideologically biased AG into a position where his recommendations can chart a course for a variety of intelligence agencies? For now, everything will remain as-is. The President who proudly boasts of his intent to govern via executive order will issue no such diktats in this case, as CNN reports.

According to the official, the president will recommend that the collection of Americans’ phone records remain at the NSA temporarily as he seeks input from Congress and the U.S. intelligence community on where to store the data permanently.

We'll see if Obama's actual speech carries anything more substantial, but for now this appears to be nothing more than the pretense of "doing something." In reality, if this is all we get, it's a kick-the-can political maneuver designed to deflect responsibility away from the President while doing nothing substantive to restore 4th Amendment checks and balances. When the recommendations come back, and virtually nothing changes, no one should be surprised.