U.S. President Barack Obama is defending the government's top-secret surveillance programs, while acknowledging widespread concerns the efforts are violating the privacy rights of ordinary Americans.
In a television interview broadcast late Monday on PBS, Mr. Obama insisted the National Security Agency is operating its phone and Internet monitoring efforts within the law.
He said, "What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails. And have not. They cannot and have not, by law and by rule, and unless they - and usually it would not be they, it would be the FBI - go to a court and obtain a warrant."
The president has been under fire since last week's revelations of the NSA programs by the British newspaper The Guardian and The Washington Post. He says he has ordered intelligence officials to release as much information as possible "without further compromising the program."
Mr. Obama also said he has created a privacy and civil liberties oversight board to review the NSA efforts.
Earlier Monday, a report published in The Guardian said documents obtained from former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, the man who exposed the NSA programs, show that Britain spied on diplomats attending the 2009 Group of 20 summit in London.