PRESIDENT OBAMA: Major Garrett.
Q: That's quite a lead-in, Mr. President. Thank you.
Rick Leggett, who is the head of the NSA task force on Edward Snowden, told "60 Minutes" that it was, quote, "worth having a conversation about granting Edward Snowden amnesty." To what degree, sir, were you pleased that he floated this trial balloon? And under what circumstances would you consider either a plea agreement or amnesty for Edward Snowden?
And what do you say to Americans, sir, who after possibly being alerted to Judge Leon's decision earlier this week, reading the panel recommendations, believe Edward Snowden set in motion something that is proper and just in this country about the scope of surveillance, and should not be considered by the government a criminal?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I've got to be careful here, Major, because Mr. Snowden is under indictment. He has been charged with -- with crimes, and that's the province of the attorney general and ultimately, a judge and a jury. So I -- I can't weigh in specifically on this case at this point. I'll -- I'll make -- I'll try to see if I can get at the -- the spirit of the question, even if I can't talk about the specifics.
I have said before and I believe that this is an important conversation that we needed to have. I have also said before that the way in which these disclosures happened have been -- have been damaging to the United States and damaging to our intelligence capabilities.
And I think that there was a way for us to have this conversation without that damage.
I'll give you just one specific example.
The -- the fact of the matter is that the United States, for all our warts, is a country that abides by rule of law, that cares deeply about privacy, that cares about civil liberties, that cares about our Constitution. And as a consequence of these disclosures, we've got countries who actually do the things that Mr. Snowden says he's worried about, very explicitly -- engaging in surveillance of their own citizens, targeting political dissidents, targeting and suppressing the press, who somehow are able to sit on the sidelines and act as if it's the United States that has problems when it comes to surveillance and intelligence operations. And that's a pretty distorted view of what's going on out there.
So I think that, as important and as necessary as this debate has been, it is also important to keep in mind that this has done unnecessary damage to U.S. intelligence capabilities and U.S. diplomacy. But I will leave it up to the courts and the attorney general to weigh in publicly on the specifics of Mr. Snowden's case.
Q: But sir, if I could follow up, Mr. Leggett is setting this in motion, at least raising this as a topic of conversation. You, sir, would, I'm certain, be consulted if there was ever going to be a conversation about amnesty or a plea bargain for Edward Snowden.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I said -- I think that's true, Major. And I guess what I'm saying is there's --
Q: Would you rule it out forever, that you would never consider it?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: What I'm saying is, is that there's a difference between Mr. Leggett saying something and the president of the United States saying something.
Q: That's why I'm trying to get you (to say it ?).
PRESIDENT OBAMA: That's exactly right. (Laughter.)
...
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Ed Henry.
Q: Thank you, Mr. President.
I want to follow up on that because -- and merry Christmas, by the way.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Merry Christmas, Ed.
Q: When Edward Snowden first started leaking the information, you made a statement on June 7th in California. And you claimed to the American people that you had already reformed many of these surveillance programs, that you came to office, quote, "my team evaluated them; we scrubbed them thoroughly; we actually expanded some of the oversight." And you did expand some of the things.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes.
Q: You also said, we may have to rebalance some, there may be changes. But you concluded with, quote, "you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential program run amok, but when you actually look at the details, then I think we've struck the right balance."
That was only six months ago. Now, there's judges are saying no; your own panel is saying no; even you're saying no, we haven't really struck the right balance, perhaps, that changes have to be made.
My question is, were you wrong then because you were not fully read in, not just on these programs, but on other programs, outside of the ones you just talked about, where we were potentially listening in on the German leaders, the Brazilian leaders and others, that suggest there were abuses, number one?
And number two, if you -- if you were fully read in on these programs, is it another example of what Judy was -- Julie was getting at, with this question of credibility with the American people, that just like on health care, you like your plan; you can keep it? On surveillance, you looked the American people in the eye six months ago and said, we've got the right balance. And six months later, you're saying, maybe not.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, hold on a second, I -- I think it's important to note that, when it comes to the right balance on surveillance, these are a series of judgment calls that we're making every single day because we've got a whole bunch of folks whose job it is to make sure that the American people are protected.
And that's a hard job because if something slips, then the question that's coming from you the next day at a press conference is, Mr. President, why didn't you catch that; why did the intelligence people allow that to slip; isn't there a way that we could have found out that in fact this terrorist attack took place.
Q: (Inaudible) -- why did you say that you struck the right balance.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: So the -- so the point is, Ed, not that my assessment of the 215 program has changed in terms of technically how it works. What is absolutely clear to me is that given the public debate that's taken place and the disclosures that have taken place over the last several months that this is only going to work if the American people have confidence and trust.
Now, part of the challenge is, is that because of the manner in which these disclosures took place, in dribs and drabs, oftentimes shaded in a particular way, and because of some of the constraints that we've had in terms of declassifying information and getting it out there, that that trust in how many safeguards exist and how these programs are run has been diminished. So what's going to be important is to build that back up. And I take that into account in weighing how we structure these programs.
So let me just be very specific on the 215 program. It is possible, for example, that some of the same information that the intelligence community feels is required to keep people safe can be obtained by having the private phone companies keep these records longer and to create some mechanism where they can be accessed in an effective fashion.
That might cost more. There might need to be different checks on how those requests are made. There may be technological solutions that have to be found to do that.
And the question that we're asking ourselves now is, does that make sense not only because of the fact that there are concerns about potential abuse down the road with the metadata that's being kept by a government, rather than private companies, but also does it make sense to do because people right now are concerned that maybe their phone calls are being listened to, even if they're not, and we've got to factor that in.
So I -- I -- my point is -- is that the environment has changed in ways that I think require us to take that into account. But the analysis that I've been doing throughout has always been, you know, periodically looking at what we're doing and asking ourselves, are we doing this in the right way; are we making sure that we're keeping the American can people safe, number one; are we also being true to our civil liberties and our privacy and our values?
Q: Well, I understand it's a tough job.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Right.
Q: And God forbid there's another terror attack. Every one of us is going to be second-guessing you, and that is extremely difficult, to be in the Oval Office.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: That's OK. I volunteered.
Q: But as you said, you took that on.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yeah.
Q: You put it on your back. And so my question is, do you have any personal regrets? You're not addressing the fact the public statements you've made to reassure the public -- your director of national intelligence, James Clapper, months ago went up, got a question from a Democrat, not a Republican, about whether some of this was going on, and he denied it.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: But does -- but Ed --
Q: Doesn't that undermine the public trust?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: -- Ed, you're conflating, first of all, me and -- and Mr. Clapper --
Q: He's director of national -- and he's still on the job.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I understand. I understand. But what I'm -- what I'm saying is this: that yes, these are tough problems that I am glad to have the privilege of tackling.
Your initial question was whether the statements that I made six months ago are ones that I don't stand by. And what I'm saying is that the statements I made then are entirely consistent with the statements that I make now, which is that we believed that we had scrubbed these programs and struck an appropriate balance, and there had not been evidence, and there continues not to be evidence that the particular program had been abused in how it was used and that it was a useful tool, working with other tools the intelligence community has, to ensure that if we have a thread on a potential terrorist threat, that that can be followed effectively.
What I have also said, though, is that in light of the disclosures that have taken place, it is clear that whatever benefits the configuration of this particular program may have may be outweighed by the concerns that people have on its potential abuse. And if that's the case, there may be another way of skinning the cat.
So we just keep on going at this stuff and saying, can we do this better? Can we do this more effectively? I think that the panels' recommendations are consistent with that. So if you -- if you had a chance to read the overall recommendations, what they were very clear about is, we need this intelligence. We can't unilaterally disarm.
There are ways we can do it, potentially, that gives people greater assurance that there are checks and balances -- that there's sufficient oversight and sufficient transparency. Programs like 215 could be redesigned in ways that give you the same information when you need it without creating these potentials for abuse, and that's exactly what we should be doing, is to evaluate all these things in a very clear, specific way and moving forward on changes.
And that's what I intend to do.
Q: (Off mic) -- you have no regrets?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: That's what I intend to do.
To make sure the victim gets the message, they set a pretty scary wallpaper on the infected machine: To connect to the C2 servers, Cryptolocker uses a domain generation algorithm that produces 1000 candidate unique domain names every day.
