NSA saved many lives says Obama
President Barack Obama on Wednesday defended US Internet and phone surveillance programs.
BERLIN (AP) - Trying to tamp down concerns about government over-reach, President Barack Obama on Wednesday defended US Internet and phone surveillance programs as narrowly targeted efforts that have saved lives and thwarted at least 50 terror threats.
"This is not a situation in which we are rifling through ordinary emails" of huge numbers of citizens in the United States or elsewhere, the president declared during a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He called it as a "circumscribed, narrow" surveillance program.
"Lives have been saved," Obama said, adding that the program has been closely supervised by the courts to ensure that any encroachment of privacy is strictly limited.
Merkel, for her part, said it was important to continue debate about how to strike "an equitable balance" between providing security and protecting personal freedoms.
"There has to be proportionality," she said. She added that their discussion on the matter Wednesday was "an important first step" over striking a balance.
Merkel appeared to be looking to avoid a public rift with Washington over the surveillance program, particularly since Germans benefit from US intelligence. Much of the German criticism of the program has come from her junior coalition partners, facing the prospect of losses in the September election and looking for an issue.
Obama, fresh from a two-day summit of the Group of Eight industrial economies, placed his hand over his heart outside the sunny presidential palace as a German military band played "The Star-Spangled Banner," the American national anthem. He and German President Joachim Gauck inspected a lineup of German military troops before entering the palace, stopping to greet children who waved American and German flags.
There have been a few small protests, including one directed against the National Security Agency s surveillance of foreign communications, where about 50 people waved placards taunting, "Yes, we scan."
Merkel has said she was surprised at the scope of the spying that was revealed and said the US must clarify what information is monitored. But she also said US intelligence was key to foiling a large-scale terror plot and acknowledged her country is "dependent" on cooperating with American spy services.
For Merkel, the visit presents an opportunity to bolster her domestic standing ahead of a general election in September.
The US and the Germans have clashed on economic issues, with Obama pressing for Europe to prime the economy with government stimulus measures, while Merkel has insisted on pressing debt-ridden countries to stabilize their fiscal situations first.
But the two sides have found common ground on a trans-Atlantic trade pact between the European Union and the US. At the just-completed G-8 summit, the leaders agreed to hold the first talks next month in the US.
