US President Barack Obama on Friday defended secret intelligence-gathering by government security agencies after this week’s revelations of massive collection of telephone and internet information.
“Nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That’s not what this programme’s about,” Obama said in response to a reporter’s question, during an appearance in California to promote his government’s health care policies.
“As was indicated, what the intelligence community is doing is looking at phone numbers and durations of calls. They are not looking at people’s names, and they’re not looking at content.”
A secret programme called PRISM is the leading source of raw material for the National Security Agency, the secretive US intelligence operation that monitors electronic communications, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing an internal presentation to senior NSA analysts.
US intelligence services tapped directly into the servers of at least nine leading internet companies including Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Microsoft to extract emails, voice calls, videos, photos and other communications from their customers without the need for a warrant.
The PRISM report came a day after British newspaper The Guardian reported on FBI requests for details of all the phone calls that were placed over the network of the leading US telecommunications company Verizon.
Companies deny involvement with PRISM
Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Apple immediately denied any involvement with PRISM, and on Friday Google CEO Larry Page reiterated the company’s position.
“We have not joined any program that would give the US government – or any other government – direct access to our servers.” he said on the company’s blog. “Indeed, the US government does not have direct access or a ‘back door’ to the information stored in our data centres. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.”
Obama insisted that all the US actions had been approved by Congress with bipartisan majorities. “Congress is continually briefed on how these are conducted. There are a whole range of safeguards involved and federal judges are overseeing the entire programme throughout.”
Since taking office in 2009, Obama said he has established an “audit process to make sure that we’re – after the fact – making absolutely certain that all the safeguards are being properly observed.” Obama said that the PRISM programme “does not apply to US citizens, and it does not apply to people living in the United States.”
Concerns over citizens’ privacy
European Union Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said she was “of course concerned about the possible consequences for EU citizens’ privacy, but it’s far too early to draw any conclusions.” She said that EU authorities would be seeking more information from US officials.
Obama said that under the telephone programme, security analysts “sifting through this so-called metadata ... may identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism.
“If the intelligence community then actually wants to listen to a phone call, they’ve got to go back to a federal judge, just like they would in a criminal investigation,” Obama said.
In an editorial Thursday, the left-leaning New York Times wrote, “The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr Obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it.”
Colorado Senator Mark Udall, one of Obama’s fellow left-leaning Democrats and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called for more transparency in the use of telephone records, which he called “the kind of government overreach I’ve said Americans would find shocking.” Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a member of the conservative opposition Republican Party, introduced legislation on Friday to require a warrant showing probably cause to obtaining telephone records. He called the mass collection of phone records an “outrageous abuse of power” and a violation of the US Constitution’s protection against unreasonable and unwarranted searches.
PRISM to help against terrorism
Obama said he wanted to dispel the “hype that we’ve been hearing over the last day or so” about the programmes.
“In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential programme run amok, but when you actually look at the details, then I think we’ve struck the right balance,” he said.
Asked by a reporter if he welcomed the latest leaks, Obama replied, “I don’t welcome leaks, because there’s a reason why these programmes are classified.”
“If, in fact, this information ends up just being dumped out willy-nilly without regard to risks to the programme, risks to the people involved ... then it’s very hard for us to be as effective in protecting the American people,” he said.
Obama said he welcomed debate on the balance between security and privacy as “healthy for our democracy,” noting that he took office with a “healthy skepticism” about surveillance programmes deciding that the “modest encroachments on privacy” were necessary.
“My assessment and my team’s assessment was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks,” he said.
“You can’t have a 100-per cent security and also then have 100-per cent privacy and zero inconvenience. You know, we’re going to have to make some choices as a society.”