"The Obama Administration is committed to restoring national and global trust in our surveillance gathering technologies, and ensuring that our capabilities, policies and practices reflect the changing technological environment we live in. The policies the President announced today are the culmination of months of study and review, and moving forward we will work to ensure that our nation's security policies take into account the important input from U.S. business community. 

The Commerce Department will continue to act as the voice of business in the federal government to protect U.S. economic competitiveness as we review and evaluate our national security policies. As a principal champion of the digital economy, we at the Department of Commerce understand how critical it is that we continue to promote the free flow of information in a manner that protects both privacy and security, not just for all Americans and our businesses, but also citizens of other nations. As part of that effort, I look forward to working with the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, privacy experts, technologists and business leaders as part of a comprehensive review of big data and privacy. Through our department's policy agenda, we are also committed to supporting standards development that supports the innovative potential of the digital economy. We are confident that with this we can shape an approach that meets our security needs, protects privacy and ensures the continued growth and innovation of the global digital economy."

distributed by