Leahy eyes NSA recommendations

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing in “a couple weeks” on an outside presidential task force’s report on spying, a key Democrat said on Sunday.

“The first public exposure to what the panel said is going to be before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a couple weeks, and we are going to go into it at great length,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said on “Meet The Press” Sunday morning.

{mosads}Last week, a five-person task force, appointed to review National Security Agency surveillance in the wake of revelations on the NSA’s “metadata” collection, presented its report with 46 recommendations; some of which include curbing the NSA’s ability to collect certain information.

The hearing with all five members of the select panel will occur on January 14th, according to a press release sent to reporters following the senior senator’s appearance on the morning talk show.

Leahy contends that the debate has little to do with Edward Snowden.

“It’s not about Snowden — in a way he’s irrelevant on this — it’s a question of how well this has been looked at and how much the American public knows about it,” Leahy said on “Meet The Press.”

On the same show, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) attacked President Obama for failing to defend the National Security Agency in the wake of massive leaks on the spy agency’s activities.

“I wish the president would step forward and defend the NSA. What he says is, he says ‘no abuse, the intelligence is absolutely necessary.’ But then he says we have to reform it. What does he want to reform if it’s working?” the New York lawmaker asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

King, the former head of the House Homeland Security Committee, said that the agency did not abuse its authority – some of which was granted by Obama, himself.

–This report was updated at 1:04 p.m.