President Barack Obama is expected to meet with lawmakers on Thursday to discuss the controversial National Security Agency bulk data collection program revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The White House scheduled a meeting on Thursday with a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers “to discuss key programs under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” the Huffington Post reports.
Republican members of the House expected to attend are Congressmen Mike Rogers of Michigan, Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, and Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin; Democratic Representative Dutch Ruppersberg is also expected to be at the meeting.
Democratic members of the Senate expected to attend are Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Dick Durbin of Illinois, and Dianne Feinstein of California, along with Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday new details about how NSA analysts are able to sort through the deluge of metadata collected by the agency with the help of a program called XKeyscore.
XKeyscore not only allows analysts to use collected metadata like an email address or phone number to locate a target, but also to access and monitor contents of emails and online chats in real-time.
The NSA, in an official statement responding to The Guardian’s story, defended XKeyscore “as part of NSA’s lawful foreign signals intelligence collection system.”