NSA

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is poised to endorse a proposal that would end the National Security Agency’s collection of a huge amount of data on U.S. phone calls to search for evidence of terrorist plots, swapping that system for one in which telephone companies retain the data, administration officials said late Monday. The new program would do away with the database the NSA currently uses to store information on five years’ worth of phone calls made to, from and within the U.S. and have the telecommunications firms store call data for 18 months in line with current federal regulations, said a person who was briefed on the plan and asked not to be named. The White House had no official comment on the report, but a senior official said the administration was on the verge of laying out a public plan to reconfigure the telephone metadata program. ”As the President made clear in his speech on these issues in January, he directed his administration to explore all options available for ending the government’s role in holding this metadata while still maintaining as many capabilities of the program as possible,” said the official, who also asked not to be named. “The President considered those options and in the coming days, after concluding ongoing consultations with Congress, including the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, will put forward a sound approach to ensuring the government no longer collects or holds this data, but still ensures that the government has access to the information it needs to meet the national security needs his team has identified,” the Obama aide added.