President Obama doubles down on NSA defense as poll numbers slip

President Barack Obama defended two National Security Agency spying programs that have damaged his approval ratings and distracted his presidency.

In an interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose, President Obama argued it’s a “false choice” to suggest freedom must be sacrificed to achieve security, a phrasing that echoes comments he made on the campaign trail in 2008. “To say there’s a tradeoff doesn’t mean somehow that we’ve abandoned freedom,” President Obama said. The President insisted that he had implemented additional safeguards to protect personal privacy, and sought to contrast his polices with the Bush administration amid charges that the surveillance programs highlight his own hypocrisy. “Some people say ‘Well, you know, Obama was this raving liberal before. Now he’s, you know, Dick Cheney,” Obama said. “Dick Cheney sometimes says, 'Yeah, you know? He took it all lock, stock, and barrel.’ My concern has always been not that we shouldn’t do intelligence gathering to prevent terrorism, but rather, are we setting up a system of checks and balances?”