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Obama defends top secret NSA data gathering of phone records, Internet traffic to US public
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama defended top secret National Security Agency spying programs as legal in a lengthy interview Monday, and called them transparent -- even though they are authorized in secret.
• "It is transparent," Obama told PBS' Charlie Rose in an interview broadcast Monday. "That's why we set up the FISA court," he added, referring to the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that authorizes two recently disclosed programs: one that gathers U.S. phone records and another that is designed to track the use of U.S.-based Internet servers by foreigners with possible links to terrorism.
• He added that he's named representatives to a privacy and civil liberties oversight board to help in the debate over just how far government data gathering should be allowed to go -- a discussion that is complicated by the secrecy surrounding the FISA court, with hearings held at undisclosed locations and with only government lawyers present. The orders that result are all highly classified.
• "We're going to have to find ways where the public has an assurance that there are checks and balances in place ... that their phone calls aren't being listened into; their text messages aren't being monitored, their emails are not being read by some big brother somewhere," Obama said.
• A senior administration official said the president had asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to determine what more information about the two programs could be made public, to help better explain them. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly.
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House takes up far-reaching bill to ban almost all abortions after 20 weeks
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The abortion wars return to Congress in a big way with House legislation to ban almost all abortions after a fetus reaches the age of 20 weeks.
• The legislation expected to pass the Republican-controlled House as early as Tuesday has no chance of becoming law in the near future: The Democratic-led Senate will ignore it and the White House has issued a veto threat. But the measure gives social conservatives a rare chance to promote their anti-abortion agenda and (Continued on page 25)
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