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U.S. President Barack Obama will meet with several lawmakers on Thursday to discuss reforms to the National Security Agency's surveillance programs, which were exposed last year by former contractor Edward Snowden.
The small but high-profile meeting was first reported by the National Journal, and a White House spokesperson later confirmed the news to Mashable.
Obama will reportedly only invite the chairmen and ranking members of both the Senate and House of Representatives Judiciary and Intelligence committees.
"Key players" such as Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who havebeen fighting to reform the NSA's spying programs for years, as well as Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), author of the Patriot Act and a government official who is sponsoring a sweeping reform bill, will also be attending, according to the National Journal. Wyden and Udall's press secretaries did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
White House spokesperson Caitlin Hayden confirmed to Mashable that Obama will meet with Congressional leaders on Thursday, but declined to provide further details. Hayden said this is just one more in a series of meetings with various stakeholders, as the administration reviews the NSA's programs.
"The president will also hold meetings with individuals with a variety of perspectives as we near the final stages of our ongoing internal review," she said in an email.
Obama will hold two separate meetings with Intelligence Community leaders and members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board on Wednesday, Hayden added.
Before Christmas, Obama met with several tech leaders at the White House, who asked him to rein in the NSA's spying powers. Mark Pincus, co-founder of social-gaming company Zynga even asked the president to pardon Snowden.
Obama is getting ready to introduce several reform proposals in the wake of a report by the administration's internal-review panel, which proposed ending the controversial NSA's bulk telephone metadata collection program, the Los Angeles Times reported on Friday.
It's unclear when Obama's proposals will be unveiled. Hayden, a White House spokesperson, told Mashable that Obama will deliver "remarks" about the panel's findings before the State of the Union address on Jan. 28, but declined to specify a date.
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