The President defends US spying operations and rejects claims he is following the same security policy as the Bush administration.

10:21, UK, Tuesday 18 June 2013


President Barack Obama has defended secret US spying programmes and rejected comparisons with the policies of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Details of two huge operations by the National Security Agency were leaked to The Guardian and The Washington Post.

The programmes aim to track US citizens' phone calls and intercept global internet traffic as part of the US counter-terrorism measures.

Edward Snowden

Speaking to PBS' Charlie Rose, Mr Obama insisted the programmes were "transparent".

Responding to the charge that he had merely continued with the surveillance policies that the former US administration had brought in after the 9/11 attacks, Mr Obama insisted that the programmes were carried out with "systems of checks and balances".

"Congress is overseeing it, federal courts are overseeing it," he said.

"The whole point of my concern, before I was president - because some people say, 'Well, you know, Obama was this raving liberal before. Now he's, you know, Dick Cheney,'" the president said.


The interview was broadcast on Monday, as Mr Obama was in Northern Ireland for a G8 summit largely focused on the Syria crisis.

Dick Cheney (L) and Barack Obama (R)

A poll by CNN says the president's approval rating has fallen by eight points over the past month, and by 17 points among Americans under the age of 34.

The poll shows a majority of Americans believe the government has collected information on their phone calls and internet usage, but are OK with it. Still, 61% say they disapproved of how the president handled the government's surveillance.

Mr Obama said he hoped some transparency would help set the record straight on the programmes.


"We're going to have to find ways where the public has an assurance that there are checks and balances in place, that they have enough information about how we operate that they know that their phone calls aren't being listened into, their text messages aren't being monitored, their emails are not being read by some Big Brother somewhere."

His comments came after an online chat by Edward Snowden, the man who leaked documents revealing the scope of the two programmes.

The US has launched a criminal investigation to prosecute Mr Snowden for lifting and exposing the classified material.

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