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Obama meets spy bosses on NSA reforms

U.S. President Barack Obama met top spy chiefs Wednesday as he finalized a decision on how to rein in National Security Agency (NSA) spying sweeps following revelations by Edward Snowden.

Obama met the heads of the NSA, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),  Federal Bureau of Investigation  (FBI) and the director of national intelligence as part of a string of meetings with advocates on both sides of the debate on balancing privacy and national security.

"This was an important chance for the president to hear directly from his team as he begins to make final decisions about how we move forward with key intelligence collection programs," said National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden.

The meeting included CIA chief John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, NSA head General Keith Alexander and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey.

Obama was joined in the talks by Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder.

The president also held a meeting with members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, a watchdog body set up by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Obama promised that a report the board is preparing will be factored into the administration's deliberations on how to move forward, the White House said.

On Thursday, Obama plans to meet top lawmakers with responsibilities overseeing the intelligence community -- including some critics of NSA mass phone data capture programs -- to discuss how to reform the intelligence community.

Aides say that Obama spent considerable time during his recent vacation in Hawaii mulling new constraints on U.S. security agencies in the wake of revelations of mass snooping by fugitive intelligence agency contractor Snowden.

The president will deliver his conclusions in a speech within weeks, and definitely before his annual State of the Union Address, which is scheduled for Jan. 28. 

A review panel tasked by Obama with looking at reforms of the intelligence community came up with 46 recommendations in a report issued in December, among them scaling back NSA activities to restore public trust. 

The report included calls to end the agency's power to collect and store Americans' phone records. The group also called for curbs on the NSA's ability to ask technology firms to insert back doors to software that allow it to access encrypted communications. 

The panel also said the NSA should do more to inform the public and lawmakers about the extent of its surveillance. 

Obama has hinted that he may be in favor of continuing the mass collection of phone data -- but that the billions of items should be held by communications firms or a third party and not the NSA.

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France fines Google over data privacy

France’s data protection watchdog has fined Google 150,000 euros after the U.S. search engine ignored a three-month ultimatum to bring its practices on tracking and storing user information in line with local law.

The privacy watchdog, known as CNIL, has also ordered Google to post the decision on its google.fr homepage for 48 hours within eight days of being officially notified of the ruling.

At issue was the new approach to user data that Google began in March 2012, in which it consolidated its 60 privacy policies into one and started combining data collected on individual users across its services, including YouTube, Gmail and social network Google+.

It gave users no means to opt out.

“The company does not sufficiently inform its users of the conditions in which their personal data are processed, nor of the purposes of this processing,” CNIL said in a statement.

A Google France spokesman told Reuters the company will take note of this decision and consider further action.

“Throughout our talks with CNIL, we have explained our privacy policy and how it allows us to create simpler and more efficient services,” he said.

Spain, Britain, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands have also opened similar cases against Google because the U.S.-based web giant’s privacy policy introduced in 2012 does not conform with local rules protecting consumers on how their personal data is processed and stored.

CNIL said the fine is the highest it has issued until now and is justified by the number and the seriousness of the breaches stated in the case.

But the penalties that France and most other EU countries can impose remain small compared with the $10.7 billion net profit that Google earned in 2012.

Spain can impose fines of up to 1 million euros, while the German Data Protection Act caps penalties at 300,000 euros.

There is no legal framework to levy European-wide fines.

In June, CNIL found Google to be in breach of privacy law on six counts, notably that it posted “insufficient” information for French users about how their private browsing data was collected and used.

Google has said that its privacy policy “respects European Law.”