President Obama says Snowden not a patriot

WASHINGTON -- Caught between domestic gridlock and foreign policy crises, President Barack Obama held a news conference Friday before jetting off on his August vacation.

The afternoon question-and-answer session with reporters marked Obama's first comments on his decision to cancel a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in retribution for Moscow's decision to grant asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. The president also faced questions about the terror threat that has led to an extraordinary global travel warning for Americans, as well as the political chaos in Egypt.

Obama: NSA leaker Edward Snowden not a patriot

President Barack Obama says National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden is not a patriot for revealing widespread government surveillance programs.

Obama says he called for a review of the secret surveillance programs before details of documents Snowden leaked to reporters were publicized in June. He says Snowden's disclosures prompted a faster and more passionate response than if Obama had just appointed a board to review the policies.

Speaking to reporters Friday, Obama said he wants more oversight of the intelligence community's surveillance programs to strike a balance between protecting Americans safety and their privacy. Obama pledges more oversight of NSA surveillance

President Barack Obama says he'll work with Congress to change the oversight of some of the National Security Agency's controversial surveillance programs and name a new panel of outside experts to review technologies.

Specifically, Obama says he wants to work with Congress to insert an opposing voice into arguments before the secret court that approves massive government surveillance efforts. The court currently hears only from Justice Department officials who want the surveillance approved.

The secret court and other surveillance programs have been under scrutiny since NSA leaker Edward Snowden revealed classified programs in June. The government has defended these programs as necessary to prevent terror attacks.

Speaking to reporters, Obama says the government can and must be more transparent in how it conducts surveillance.

Obama: Al-Qaida can still attack US interests

President Barack Obama says the main al-Qaida terrorist group is "on its heels" and "decimated," but its regional groups are powerful enough to attack U.S. interests.

Obama says the core of al-Qaida is less able to carry out a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11. But he says offshoots like the one in Yemen have the capacity to go after U.S. embassies and businesses around the world.

It was the threat of such an attack that prompted the U.S. government to close 19 diplomatic posts in the Middle East and North Africa last week.

U.S. intelligence officials had intercepted a message between a top al-Qaida official and his deputy in Yemen about plans for a major terror attack targeting American or other Western sites abroad.

Obama says he has range of candidates to lead Fed

President Barack Obama says he has a range of outstanding candidates to lead the Federal Reserve and calls Lawrence Summers and Janet Yellen highly qualified to become the next Fed chairman.

Obama says in a White House news conference that he decided to push back against people who are urging him not to pick Summers because he saw his former economic adviser, in his words, "getting slapped around the press for no reason."

Summers served as the head of the National Economic Council during Obama's first term. Yellen is the vice chair of the Fed.

Obama says he will decide in the fall whom to nominate to succeed the Fed's outgoing chairman, Ben Bernanke.

Obama vows to capture Benghazi perpetrators

President Barack Obama is vowing to bring to justice those responsible for last year's deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.

Obama says his administration is intent on capturing those who carried out the attack, noting that it took him longer than 11 months to make good on his promise to find Osama bin Laden.

Obama also says his government has a sealed indictment on some suspected of involvement.

Officials said earlier this week the Justice Department filed the first criminal charges as part of its investigation of the September attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Republicans have criticized the administration's response to the attack and its shifting explanation of what happened.

Obama spoke to reporters at a White House news conference Friday.

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