

Barack Obama on Charlie Rose discussing NSA spying - adventured
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12981

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adventured
Relevant segment of discussion regarding the NSA begins at 26:45

A few interesting statements in here by Obama

1) Obama says the NSA can't listen to your (meaning American citizens here)
phone calls or target your emails, and have not, without an individualized
FISA court order

2) Obama says he fully believes in what the NSA is doing

3) He says that the process is that with probably cause, the NSA hands off
what they have to the FBI, who then seeks FISA approval to tap a phone

4) He refers to Snowden having revealed "program 2015," the one involving the
telecoms like Verizon. Obama says the Snowden case has been referred to the
DOJ for possible prosecution and extradition, but he won't comment on the
prosecution etc.

5) He says that there's no "content" in the program 2015 database, just
metadata like phone numbers, dates, and call length

6) Obama says that the agencies make sure to have probable cause first before
going to FISA, as an explanation for why there are no refused requests

7) Obama says that the entire program and process has been transparent; that
every member of Congress has known about the programs; and that there is vast
oversight, from the FISA court to Congress to the executive branch

8) He says that the ability to draw extrapolated conclusions from the linking
of metadata is true, except that under current law, doing such a thing would
be illegal

9) He says there is a second program, called the 702 program, and that it does
not apply to any US person. It relates to foreign entities, and only to
counter-terrorism, anti-proliferation, cyberwarfare / hacking, and relates to
phone numbers and emails etc. He said from this program, via a warrant to the
likes of Yahoo (etc), they can obtain content.

10) Obama says that he has asked the intelligence community how much of these
programs can be declassified without compromising their missions. He says he
wants a broad national conversation on all of this.

Not much that hasn't been said before, but here Obama is making fairly direct
and elaborated statements on the matter.

