President Obama’s Chief of Staff Denis McDonough told Bob Schieffer on “Face the Nation” Sunday that the president does not believe he has violated the privacy of any American.
Read the exchange below:
Schieffer: Well, let me just get you on the record here now. Does the president feel that he has violated the privacy of any American?
McDonough: He does not.
Schieffer: You feel that that has been taken care of? You know, I think back to what Ronald Reagan used to say, “Trust, but verify.” But in this situation, it seems to me the government may be asking us to trust it but they can’t verify why we ought to trust, in some cases.
McDonough: Well, I think you’ll hear the president talk about this in the days ahead, Bob, and you’ll hear him say again what he said in a speech earlier this month at the war college, at the National Defense University. You’ll hear what he said when he responded to reporters last week on this question, which is we do have to find the right balance, especially in this new situation where we find ourselves with all of us reliant on internet, on e-mail, on texting.
So we find ourselves communicating in different ways, but that means the bad guys are doing that as well. So we have to find the right balance between protecting our privacy, which is sacrosanct in the president’s view, and protecting the country from the very real risks and threats that we face.
So the president’s not saying– and this goes to the heart of the changes he made in 2009. The president is not saying, “Trust me.” The president is saying, “I want every member of Congress, on whose authority we are running this program, to understand it, to be briefed about it, and to be comfortable with it.” That’s why we’ve done things like we did in 2009 and 2011, by presenting a classified white paper, inviting every member of Congress, 535 members, to see that piece of paper. To study it and to come to us with questions.
