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As Egyptians vote on new constitution, a look at key articles in the draft charter
• CAIRO (AP) -- Egypt's more than 52 million voters are going to the polls on Tuesday and Wednesday to decide whether to approve the country's rewritten constitution, which limits the scope of Islamic law and introduces new articles seen as a victory for rights advocates. It also expands the powers of the military in politics.
• Here is a look at some of the key changes made to the constitution, previously enacted under the government of toppled Islamist President Mohammed Morsi:
• CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT:
• In the preamble, the draft states that the charter "continues to build a democratic, modern country with a civilian government." The word "civilian," which in Arabic indicates non-religious and non-military, has stirred anger among ultraconservative Islamists who consider it synonymous with "secularist" when it was initially phrased as "civilian rule." Some liberal constituent panel members accuse head of the panel of unilaterally changing "rule" to "government" to appease Islamists without telling them.
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Proposal to shift surveillance phone record retention away from government drawing resistance
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Telephone companies are quietly balking at the idea of changing how they collect and store Americans' phone records to help the National Security Agency's surveillance programs. They're worried about their exposure to lawsuits and the price tag if the U.S. government asks them to hold information about customers for longer than they already do.
• President Barack Obama is expected to announce Friday what changes he is willing to make to satisfy privacy, legal and civil liberties concerns over the NSA's surveillance practices. One of the most important questions is whether the government will continue to collect millions of Americans' phone records every day so that the government can identify anyone it believes might be communicating with known terrorists.
• The president's hand-picked review committee has recommended ending the phone records program as it exists. It suggested shifting the storage of the phone records from the NSA to phone companies or an unspecified third party, and it rec (Continued on page 30)
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