This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, August 9th, 2013.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Just months after leaks revealed the federal government's ongoing surveillance of tens of millions of Americans,

the president finally says he's ready to reform the National

Security Agency, but the President also argues that the warrantless collection of phone records,

email data and other seizures, doesn't in and of itself constitute abuse.

Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute comments on the

President's press conference.

The President says that he's comfortable that these broad scale surveillance programs are simply not being abused.

Well, he may be comfortable because he trusts the people that work for him, but that doesn't mean

that the American people have to be comfortable.

We have a system where the people are supposed to be able to oversee the government, literally

oversee Congress, which oversees the executive branch while we oversee

the executive branch as well.

And that fails in a secrecy environment.

These programs are clearly within a secrecy environment.

We seem to learn, if not daily, certainly weekly,

new revelations about what's happening here.

It's a failure of oversight and the President's confidence

doesn't give me any more confidence than I had before.

We know that James Clapper lied to Congress in March because of the leaks regarding the NSA

surveillance.

...