The principal subject of discussion was to clarify what the NSA was doing to collect data. The companies pressed the need for transparency and for limits on surveillance. Their representatives argued that the credibility of the US need to be restored.
As the observers related, Obama accepted that the White House would consider a review of the NSA surveillance programs retaining the arguments of this group of companies. The meeting in the Tuesday morning at the White House was held in the Roosevelt Room. The gathering was scheduled for two hours. However, it went well over the allowed time because the discussions were richly argued.
A particular problem was related to the fact that the NSA and its British counterpart were gaining access to the data connections on Google and Yahoo servers all around the world. It was asked to impose limits on how easily NSA can obtain court orders for the Internet data.
“We appreciated the opportunity to share directly with the President our principles on government surveillance that we released last week and we urged him to move aggressively on reform” said in the final statement to the participants.
