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President Barack Obama publicly defended the NSA programs revealed by admitted leaker Edward Snowden. "If you're a U.S. person, then NSA is not listening to your phone calls and it's not targeting your emails unless it's getting an individualized court order," Obama told PBS's Charlie Rose. NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander reiterated the president's point, telling Congress on Tuesday that the NSA does not have the ability to listen to Americans' phone calls or read their e-mails. The president also assured the public that while he understands the concerns of privacy, some information is better kept as a secret. "Look, we have to make decisions about how much classified information and how much covert activity we are willing to tolerate as a society. And we could not have carried out the (Osama) bin Laden raid if it was carried out on the front page of the papers. I think everybody understands that," said Obama. William Binney takes issue with "virtually everything" Obama said about the NSA programs in the PBS interview. Binney worked at the NSA for almost 40 years. He retired in 2001 after his criticism of an NSA program. Over the years, he has disclosed surveillance programs used by the government. Binney said all e-mails are already being collected, and stored, even if they are not being read. "Director (Robert) Mueller of the FBI said in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 30, 2011, he said I've gotten together with the DOD where we've put together this technology database where I can go in, and I can, with one query, I can get all past and all future e-mails from a person," said Binney. "That says he's looking at U.S. citizen e-mail, past and future, as they come in." http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/18/nsa-whistleblowers-obama-administration-misleading-on-surveillance-programs/