President Barack Obama is ordering changes to the US government’s vast collection of phone records and has promised that “we will not monitor the communications of heads of state and government of our close friends and allies”.
He said yesterday that he would end the programme “as it currently exists”.
Mr Obama’s highly anticipated speech, after months of revelations about US spying by former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden, said intelligence officials had not intentionally abused the programme to invade privacy.
But the president also said he believed critics of the programme had been right to argue that, without proper safeguards, the mass of data could be used to obtain more information about Americans’ private lives and open the door to more-intrusive activities.
He also sought to reassure allies and others overseas.
“The bottom line is that people around the world – regardless of their nationality – should know that the United States is not spying on ordinary people who don’t threaten our national security, and that we take their privacy concerns into account,” Mr Obama said.
“This applies to foreign leaders as well.
“The leaders of our close friends and allies deserve to know that, if I want to learn what they think about an issue, I will pick up the phone and call them, rather than turning to surveillance.”
The Snowden leaks included revelations that the US was monitoring the phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Mr Obama warned: “We cannot unilaterally disarm our intelligence agencies.
“We know that the intelligence services of other countries – including some who feign surprise over the Snowden disclosures – are constantly probing our government and private-sector networks.”
He said the US must be held to a higher standard.
The president called for an end to the government’s control of phone data collected from millions of Americans – a significant change to the NSA’s controversial programme.
Privacy advocates say moving the data outside the government’s control could minimise the risk of unauthorised or overly broad searches by the NSA.