On Friday, President Barack Obama held a press conference to discuss the sweeping reforms about to take place in line with the National Security Agency’s PRISM program.

The president stated that as commander-in-chief, his duty is to protect the security of the country.  But it isn’t enough that he has confidence in the government’s measure, the public must as well.  With the aid of his national security team as well as others, they have come up with solutions to reform the system.

Four new security measures

.

The security measures currently in place are far from flawless, and the president is aware of this.  Though it is hard to find a way to make the country safe and secure from terrorist attacks while also protecting people’s right to privacy, Obama and his team have come up with some measures to reassure the nation.

• Work with Congress on the part of the Patriot Act on how they collect phone numbers

This would put in place additional safeguards such as greater oversight, transparency, and constraints on the government’s surveillance authority.

• Work with Congress to improve public confidence in the oversight of FISC

The president wants to amend how the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts approves wiretapping and spy requests, stating that judges often times only hear one side of the story and focusing on security, but not liberty and privacy.  He also wants to take steps to ensure that civil liberties are protected and that government’s authority is challenged.

• Greater transparency

To be able to gain back the confidence and trust of the people, Obama has ordered the Justice Department to be more public about its activities and release information about oversight as well as the creation of an internal NSA position to to focus on privacy to help ensure that Americans aren’t being spied on.  And by this week, a website to further its goal in educating people as to what the agency is up to, will be launched by the intelligence community.

• Forming a group of outside experts to review entire program

The government will be bringing an independent committee on board to review how surveillance technologies are being used, how to better protect civil liberties, among others.  An interim report is expected to be released in the next 60 days and  final report is expected by the end of the year.

“The men and women of our intelligence community work every single day to keep us safe because they love this country and believe in our values. They’re patriots,” Obama stated.

Obama stated that Edward Snowden was no patriot, saying he could have aired his concerns in a different manner, not publicly causing mass paranoia.  He also stated that long before Snowden leaked the information, he already signed an executive order that provided whistle-blower protection to the intelligence community for the first time.

But others doubt that there was any other way to let the public know of the government’s dastardly deeds and the executive order would have just prevented the information from being heard publicly.

Is the current reformation enough?

The question now is, is the reform enough to meet the goal of “increasing transparency and restoring public trust?” SiliconANGLE Contributing Editor John Casaretto thinks we may be on the right track.

“I think that they’re good first steps in the right direction,” Casaretto stated during an appearance on a recent episode of the Live NewsDesk Show.  “I think that it does quite a bit and it perhaps represent how far the government will go without scrapping pieces of the program all together which on the flipside is what many, many people want.  They are actually wishing that they could turn the clock back and they want snooping out of their lives and they want that to be what happens but that’s just not going to be the case.  It’s just not going to happen at this point.  This is more or less a compromise.”

Casaretto also added that it is expected that some people will be satisfied with this effort since it gives the people the opportunity to take part into what is happening, be able to stay informed, and know whether the government is overstepping their boundaries.

For more of Casaretto’s Breaking Analysis, check out the NewsDesk video below: