In First NSA Interview, Obama Can't Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

President Obama finally took a sit-down interview on the National Security Agency scandal and we’ve pasted a partial transcript below. Disappointingly, most of it is (very) generic and defensive. But, there is one important takeaway: President Obama couldn’t answer whether oversight courts (FISA) have ever rejected a single NSA spying request. PBS’s Charlie Rose asked, pointedly, “has FISA court turned down any request?” The president appears to bumble through the answer, “The ? because ? the ? first of all, Charlie, the number of requests are surprisingly small? number one. Number two, folks don?t go with a query unless they?ve got a pretty good suspicion.” This is problematic, since leaker Edward Snowden has claimed that the FISA courts are essentially a “rubber stamp” for any NSA investigations. As a result, they routinely exploit legal and technical loopholes to spy on Americans with direct and indirect ties to foreign suspects. The rest of the partial transcript shows Obama defending the program, claiming that it doesn’t permit broad spying on U.S. citizens, and touting his civil liberties record. Transcript below (via BuzzFeed): Barack Obama: Well, in the end, and what I?ve said, and I continue to believe, is that we don?t have to sacrifice our freedom in order to achieve security. That?s a false choice. That doesn?t mean that there are not tradeoffs involved in any given program, in any given action that we take. So all of us make a decision that we go through a whole bunch of security at airports, which when we were growing up that wasn?t the case?. And so that?s a tradeoff we make, the same way we make a tradeoff about drunk driving. We say, ?Occasionally there are going to be checkpoints. They may be intrusive.? To say there?s a tradeoff doesn?t mean somehow that we?ve abandoned freedom. I don?t think anybody says we?re no longer free because we have checkpoints at airports. Charlie Rose: But there is a balance here. Barack Obama: But there is a balance, so I?m going to get to your ? get to your question. The way I view it, my job is both to protect the American people and to protect the American way of life, which includes our privacy. And so every program that we engage in, what I?ve said is ?Let?s examine and make sure that we?re making the right tradeoffs.? Now, with respect to the NSA,

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