It’s not the happiest topic, but they’re meeting to discuss it.
On Thursday, President Obama met with Tim Cook and other tech executives from companies like Google and AT&T to discuss government surveillance according to Politico.
Civil liberties leaders were also at the closed-door meeting. The White House declined to comment about the details of the meeting, and all the attendees also declined to comment to Politico about any specifics. However, a White House aide did tell Politico:
“This is one of a number of discussions the administration is having with experts and stakeholders in response to the president’s directive to have a national dialogue about how to best protect privacy in a digital era, including how to respect privacy while defending our national security.”
These meetings are no doubt in response to the PRISM document leaks that occurred in June. These documents revealed that major tech companies may be cooperating with the US government to gather surveillance data about its users.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.