US Intends To Continue Indiscriminate Collection of Information

On Jan. 17, President Barack Obama gave a speech about National Security Agency (NSA) reforms. Obama included some modest improvements of the controversial surveillance program of the U.S. government. Even so, the speech was not enough for the United States to restore the confidence of the international community. I expect to see more specified improvements in the next congressional debates.

President Obama vowed to reduce the NSA telephone metadata program and stop monitoring the communications of “close friends and allies.” Also, additional restrictions would be placed on gathering personal information or setting a target for espionage.

However, the U.S. government will continuously watch the web surfing [activities] and email accounts of foreign users, as well as collect metadata. Metadata comprises the bulk of personal phone records, such as lists of phone numbers as well as the times and length of calls. The only significant change is that a third party retains these bulk records instead of the government and allows the government to access it when necessary. The reform barely allows the third party to check intelligence agents or the U.S. government.

These NSA reforms have been a controversial issue since last spring, as Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, leaked the [existence of the] surveillance program. Nevertheless, President Obama never sincerely apologized for these illegal activities. Also, the speech on Jan. 17 came closer to defending the NSA and its activities than reforming the NSA. Indeed, the president insisted that the NSA cared about privacy more than others, as he gave examples of worse cases in China and Russia. In addition, I doubt that this reform will be very effective. Because of exceptions and vague expressions, many experts predict that the collection of data will be sustained. Moreover, it is not obvious which countries are “close friends and allies” for the U.S.

Passive actions by the U.S. government to reform the NSA seem to be based on overconfidence in the NSA’s abilities and the self-centered minds of the [people of the] U.S., as they have regard only for their own national security, without respecting other countries. According to Snowden, the NSA also spied on the Korean Embassy in Washington D.C. Therefore, the Korean government should exert the best diplomatic efforts [to encourage] the U.S. government to carry out reforms thoroughly.