The meeting between tech execs and the US President revolved around the Snowden leaks

Dec 18, 2013 07:57 GMT  ·  By
The NSA reform was top priority for White House talks with tech execs on Tuesday
   The NSA reform was top priority for White House talks with tech execs on Tuesday

Tech execs continued their strategy of pressuring the White House into reforming the NSA’s surveillance operations during a meeting scheduled with President Barack Obama.

Senior execs from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, Netflix, Comcast, Apple, Twitter, AT&T and several other companies met privately with U.S. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, as well as members of the White House’s national security team.

It seems that the White House and the execs didn’t really see eye to eye on the topic of the discussions. The meeting was supposed to be about the issues that Healthcare.gov has had, the White House kept saying, but tech leaders had something else on their minds – discussing the NSA’s spying practice, which have affected their businesses and credibility.

According to The Guardian, the healthcare website issues were discussed for about 45 minutes during which Obama and Biden weren’t even present. The other two hours, however, were filled with discussions about surveillance issues.

“Finally, the group discussed the national security and economic impacts of unauthorized intelligence disclosures. This was an opportunity for the president to hear from CEOs directly as we near completion of our review of signals intelligence programs, building on the feedback we’ve received from the private sector in recent weeks and months,” the White House said.

The official statement further indicates that the president believes in an “open, free, and innovative Internet” and that he listened to the group’s concerns and recommendations, saying they’ll consider their input.

Reports indicate that the group discussed topics such as PRISM, the NSA program that collects Internet communications, and the program that allows the intelligence agency to collect telephone records. The reform of the secret FISA court was also on the list, along with the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, a law that enables authorities to read emails and digital communications older than six months with a simple subpoena.

Google has recently backed a petition asking the White House to reform this particular law to have the authorities get a warrant if they want access to such data.