Despite public and congressional resistance to recently disclosed National Security Agency surveillance programs, “President Obama and his top advisers have concluded that there is no workable alternative to the bulk collection of huge quantities of ‘metadata,’ including records of all telephone calls made inside the United States,” according to the New York Times.

“Instead, the administration has hinted it may hold that information for only three years instead of five while it seeks new technologies that would permit it to search the records of telephone and Internet companies, rather than collect the data in bulk in government computers.”

“Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the director of the N.S.A., has told industry officials that developing the new technology would take at least three years.”

Crossposted from Wonk Wire.