Now: let Snowden return with immunity

President Obama said Friday that he would review the National Security Agency’s far-reaching surveillance programs over the holiday break and would make a “pretty definitive statement” in January about possible reforms.

Obama gave his clearest signal to date that he may end the NSA’s ability to collect and sift through millions of Americans’ call records, even if some of that capability is preserved through different mechanisms. He signaled that he may end the NSA’s collection and storage of millions of Americans’ phone records and instead require phone companies to hold the data.

More broadly, Obama indicated that his views on the viability of the NSA’s surveillance programs have changed significantly since they were publicly revealed in June. ...WaPo