Top
news: An
outside panel of intelligence and legal experts on Wednesday recommended that
President Barack Obama impose significant constraints on the National Security
Agency (NSA), urging major changes in the way the agency collects metadata,
conducts cyber operations, and spies on foreign governments. Among the report's
46 recommendations was that phone records remain in the hands of
telecommunications companies, not the NSA, and that a court order be required
before the agency can access the data.
"We have identified a series of reforms
that are designed to safeguard the privacy and dignity of American citizens,
and to promote public trust, while also allowing the intelligence community to
do what must be done to respond to genuine threats," says the report, which explicitly
sought to balance the NSA's objectives with constitutional and economic considerations.
The White House already rejected one of the report's recommendations -- that
leadership of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command be split -- and has said it
expects significant pushback on some of the others from the NSA.
Economy: The U.S.
Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that
it will begin to wind down its stimulus campaign, paring back its $85
billion-a-month bond buying program gradually in 2014. "The recovery clearly remains far from complete," said Fed Chairman Bernanke. But "we're hopeful ... we'll
begin to see the whites of the eyes of the end of the recovery, and the
beginning of the more normal period of economic growth."