Obama: NSA Has Saved Lives             06/19 07:17

   Trying to tamp down concerns about government over-reach, President Barack 
Obama on Wednesday defended U.S. Internet and phone surveillance programs as 
narrowly targeted efforts that have saved lives and thwarted at least 50 terror 
threats.

   BERLIN (AP) -- Trying to tamp down concerns about government over-reach, 
President Barack Obama on Wednesday defended U.S. 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.

   The two leaders spoke to the media after meeting privately on a range of 
issues confronting U.S. and European leaders, including the fragile effort to 
bring peace in Afghanistan, where peace talks with the Taliban are in the 
offing to find ways to end the nearly 12-year war. Earlier Wednesday, Afghan 
President Hamid Karzai suspended talks with the United States on a new security 
deal to protest the way his government was being left out of the initial peace 
negotiations with the Taliban.

   Obama said the U.S. had anticipated "there were going to be some areas of 
friction, to put it mildly, in getting this thing off the ground. That's not 
surprising. They've been fighting there for a long time" and mistrust is 
rampant.

   But he said it was important to pursue a parallel track toward 
reconciliation even as the fighting continues, and it would up to the Afghan 
people whether that effort ultimately bears fruit.   


(KA)