"I actually think we would have gotten to the same place [without Mr Snowden's leaks]," Mr Obama added, "and we would have done so without putting at risk our national security".How that would have happened, without the intervention of Mr Snowden, is unclear. In a speech in May Mr Obama suggested that a review of surveillance policy was necessary "so we can intercept new types of communication, but also build in privacy protections to prevent abuse." But when senators asked for details about the breadth of NSA surveillance, they were stonewalled by the administration. When the director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, was asked if the NSA collected "any type of data at all" on a large number of Americans, he simply lied. - www.economist.com