Obama spelled it out in his interview with Charlie Rose:
Michael Crowley thinks the administration has finally found its voice on the surveillance leaks:
Speaking with Charlie Rose, Obama portrayed himself–as he did in his recent address on his drone and detention policies–as copiously working to strike a balance. “[W]e don’t have to sacrifice our freedom in order to achieve security. That’s a false choice,” Obama told Rose. “And so every program that we engage in, what I’ve said is, ‘Let’s examine and make sure that we’re making the right tradeoffs.’” Obama also clarified key points that may be lost on people who only follow the surveillance debate casually–namely that “if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails,” as he put it. A longtime critic of fear-mongering about terrorism, Obama was tonally measured about the threat.
Michael Tomasky found the interview “fascinating” but argues that Obama was too equivocating in his defense of NSA surveillance:
He supports these programs, and he ordered them, and he ought to just come out with a guns-blazing, f–k you ACLU, smackdown defense of the whole thing. Maybe an interview isn’t the place for that, and a speech or address is. He owns the program, so he might as well really own it.
More than that, I’d imagine he has interesting thoughts on national security and civil liberties, and it would be nice if we could hear our president go into some detail on questions like this instead of speaking in guarded and defensive soundbites. Even so, the comments were illuminating in that they show that Obama is of no frame of mind to change the current policy a whit.
Frank James reminds us that as much as Obama would like to make it seem otherwise, this conversation was forced upon him:
From the reasonable, matter-of-fact way the president put it, you would have thought that such a discussion had been part of Obama’s plan for his second term all along. But, of course, it wasn’t. The Obama administration didn’t exactly initiate this discussion. Instead, it was thrust upon him. Indeed, whether you view Edward Snowden, the leaker of the NSA surveillance programs, as a hero or traitor, he’s likely the only reason Obama is now forced to call for such a discussion about NSA surveillance. …
Presidents often see national security as requiring aggressive actions — frequently at odds with civil liberties — which they, of course, would rather not discuss openly. Once leaks force a public debate, presidents are compelled to speak to the nation’s concerns and sometimes to the global public beyond the U.S. But it certainly isn’t part of their plan.
The Dish 