President Obama will deliver his highly anticipated speech on reforms to the National Security Agency on Jan. 17, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Friday. Carney did not elaborate on what the president will say when he outlines his vision for changes to the NSA's vast surveillance activities. The address comes in the wake of disclosures from documents stolen by former government contractor Edward Snowden.

Obama and his aides have been focused behind the scenes this week on finishing a review of the spy programs and preparing for the president's address to the nation. Privacy and civil liberties activists, along with top executives of technology company, are calling on the president to adopt sweeping reforms to curb the NSA's collection of phone call metadata and personal information of online users. U.S. defense and intelligence agencies have argued that such information is necessary to keep the public safe. But a White House advisory board report issued in December found no evidence that such data had prevented any terrorist attacks.