E-Paper
Obama-Xi meet to be overshadowed by leaks
New disclosures about top-secret government programs to collect data on Americans' phone calls and Internet activity are likely to overshadow President Obama's two-day summit this weekend with the president of China.
New disclosures about top-secret government programs to collect data on Americans' phone calls and Internet activity are likely to overshadow President Obama's two-day summit this weekend with the President of China.
Obama is set to meet with President Xi Jinping on a 200-acre estate in Southern California on Friday and Saturday, a historic visit that was expected to be a venue for Obama to raise concerns about Chinese cyber attacks and spying.
But now, that diplomatic conversation will take place in the midst of striking revelations about the United States's surveillance operations on its own citizens.
Leaked documents published on Wednesday and Thursday revealed National Security Agency programs to collect vast amounts of information about the daily communications of US residents with people inside the country and overseas.
One program involved an NSA order to a subsidiary of Verizon Communications to provide records of all calls made, but not their content.
The other program, according to leaked documents, involved agreements between the NSA and several of the nation's most prominent Internet companies to allow government agencies to collect data from the companies' services.
Late Thursday evening, the director of national intelligence, James R Clapper, said in a statement that "only non-US persons outside the US" were targeted.
