> Q Mr. President, could you please react to the reports of secret government surveillance of phones and Internet? And can you also assure Americans that the government -- your government doesn't have some massive secret database of all their personal online information and activities?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. When I came into this office, I made two commitments that are more important than any commitment I made: Number one, to keep the American people safe; and number two, to uphold the Constitution. And that includes what I consider to be a constitutional right to privacy and an observance of civil liberties.
Now, the programs that have been discussed over the last couple days in the press are secret in the sense that they're classified. But they're not secret in the sense that when it comes to telephone calls, every member of Congress has been briefed on this program. With respect to all these programs, the relevant intelligence committees are fully briefed on these programs. These are programs that have been authorized by broad bipartisan majorities repeatedly since 2006.
I'm not arguing against you, I'm saying that his statement is vague, and that it could just be a broad assertion of the executive powers. It doesn't matter whether the program is called PRISM or SUPERPATRIOT or what (in the president's reasoning), such surveillance measures have been legally approved and are regulated, if the government chooses to undertake such measures in the name of security. This is not the same as acknowledging that PRISM exists (which would put Google/Facebook's claims to the test).
The inevitable conclusion is that while he did not specifically confirm what was said in the press, he lent great credibility to the leaks being real documents describing real programs.
If the programs were not as described, Obama would have certainly said so. Instead he confirmed their existence without disagreeing with what was said in the Washington Post about it.
Given that, there is good reason to believe the substance of the leak, even though we don't know who leaked it or exactly what is in that presentation.