No one listening to your calls

President Barack Obama has defended US spy agency programs which trawl phone and Internet data as a "modest encroachment" on privacy needed to keep Americans safe from terrorism.
"Nobody is listening to your telephone calls," Obama said, seeking to quell public disquiet after two days of explosive revelations hinting at the scope of a vast and classified government data mining operation.
Obama, in San Jose, California, hit out at what he said was "hype" over reports the National Security Agency (NSA) logs details of millions of domestic calls, for possible later use in anti-terror operations.
He also defended a program called PRISM, in which NSA and FBI agents are tapping into the servers of nine US Internet giants, including Facebook, Google, YouTube, Apple and others, as they try to subvert terror plots originating abroad.
"This does not apply to US citizens. And it does not apply to people living in the United States," Obama said.
Civil liberties and privacy groups have raised alarm at the two programs, reported by the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers, warning they are "Orwellian" and could be unconstitutional.
Obama said he welcomed the debate, but warned the programs had previously been kept under wraps to avoid tipping off America's enemies and said they made only "modest encroachments" on privacy.
"I think it's important to recognize that you can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We're going to have to make some choices as a society," he said.
He repeatedly argued that Congress had been kept fully apprised of the activity and had voted to authorize it. Federal and secret intelligence courts were also used to present abuse, he said.
The Washington Post, citing a career intelligence officer, reported late Thursday the NSA had direct access to Internet firm servers to track an individual's web presence via audio, video, photographs and emails.
Internet giants, however, denied opening their doors for US spy agencies.
Claims of the Internet spy operation broke as Washington reeled from a Guardian newspaper report on Wednesday detailing an apparent operation by the NSA to capture millions of domestic phone records.