The Tonight Show, with President Barack Obama

So, last night, President Obama visited Jay Leno at The Tonight Show, and they talked about a whole bunch of stuff (like how terrible Russia's anti-gay policies are, by which Leno is outraged, despite the fact that he is himself a homophobic bigot who makes fun of gay men every chance he gets), but it was the part of the interview where the President addressed revelations about domestic spying and whistleblowing that I found particularly interesting. That part is below, but Slade's got the entire appearance with complete transcript here, if you want to check it out.

Leno: It's safe to say that we learned about these threats [to US embassies] through the NSA intelligence program? Is that a fair assessment?

Obama: Well, this intelligence-gathering that we do is a critical component of counterterrorism. And obviously, with Mr. Snowden and the disclosures of classified information, this raised a lot of questions for people. But what I said as soon as it happened I continue to believe in, which is a lot of these programs were put in place before I came in. I had some skepticism, and I think we should have a healthy skepticism about what government is doing. I had the programs reviewed. We put in some additional safeguards to make sure that there's federal court oversight as well as congressional oversight, that there is no spying on Americans.

We don't have a domestic spying program. What we do have are some mechanisms where we can track a phone number or an email address that we know is connected to some sort of terrorist threat. And that information is useful. But what I've said before I want to make sure I repeat, and that is we should be skeptical about the potential encroachments on privacy. None of the revelations show that government has actually abused these powers, but they're pretty significant powers.

And I've been talking to Congress and civil libertarians and others about are there additional ways that we can make sure that people know nobody is listening to your phone call, but we do want to make sure that after a Boston bombing, for example, we've got the phone numbers of those two brothers — we want to be able to make sure did they call anybody else? Are there networks in New York, are there networks elsewhere that we have to roll up? And if we can make sure that there's confidence on the part of the American people that there's oversight, then I think we can make sure that we're properly balancing our liberty and our security.

Leno: When we come back, I want to ask you about Russia and Snowden. I hit on something in the monologue which just seems incredible to me, and I want to get your thoughts on that.

More with the President when we come back. (Applause.)

* * *

Leno: Welcome back to our discussion with President Barack Obama. (Applause.) Let me ask you about this — the NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Some call him a whistleblower. What do you call him?

Obama: Well, we don't know yet exactly what he did, other than what he's said on the Internet, and it's important for me not to prejudge something.

Leno: Got you.

Obama: Hopefully, at some point he'll go to trial and he will have a lawyer and due process, and we can make those decisions.

I can tell you that there are ways, if you think that the government is abusing a program, of coming forward. In fact, I, through executive order, signed whistleblower protection for intelligence officers or people who are involved in the intelligence industry. So you don't have to break the law. You don't have to divulge information that could compromise American security. You can come forward, come to the appropriate individuals and say, look, I've got a problem with what's going on here, I'm not sure whether it's being done properly.

If, in fact, the allegations are true, then he didn't do that. And that is a huge problem because a lot of what we do depends on terrorists networks not knowing that, in fact, we may be able to access their information.

Leno: Let me add — now, he was a contracted employee.

Obama: Yes.

Leno: And it seems the government has a lot of these. I remember when I was coming up my brother was in ROTC, and in those days, they would take college students, you go into the Army, the Army would train you. This guy is being paid money by an outside firm, living in Hawaii, got the stripper girlfriend. All of a sudden you're all upset with what the government is doing, and you go to another country. I mean, in my era, Daniel Ellsberg stood in the town square and said, "I've got this," got arrested, The New York Times — I mean, should we go back to not using so many — whether it's Blackwater or any of these contract — these people who are Hessians, they get paid?

Obama: Well, I think you're raising an important issue. We've been trying to reduce the reliance on contractors. Some of the contractors do a great job, and they're patriots and they're trying to support our mission. Sometimes they can do it more efficiently or effectively if they've got some specialized knowledge. But one of the things that I've asked our team to look at is, when it comes to intelligence, should we, in fact, be farming that much stuff out. And there are a lot of extraordinarily capable folks in our military and our government who can do this, and probably do it cheaper, and then benefit from the training that they get so that when they transfer — (applause) — they're in a better position.

"We don't have a domestic spying program." Ha ha whut. Even more incredible is listening to the President talk about "whistleblower protection" while his administration is busily waging war on whistleblowers. [CN: Violent language at link.] This is just deeply dishonest.

Also: Jay Leno is such a jerk.