Obama claimed in his press conference that Snowden stole his thunder, that he was one that tried to initiate a surveillance debate prior to Snowden’s leaks. But, he complained, “rather than an orderly and lawful process to debate these issues and come up with appropriate reforms, repeated leaks of classified information have initiated the debate in a very passionate but not always fully informed way.” That argument just doesn’t comport with reality.

In his speech in May on national security, the president did indeed announce a review of surveillance policy. What he failed to mention, though, was that the very same speech was spurred on by another leak — of the Justice Department white paper justifying drone strikes on Americans overseas. There’s been no change on transparency surrounding drone strikes since the speech, as Obama himself proved later in the press conference when he refused confirm a drone strike took place in Yemen this week (there were several).

The fact is, Obama has had years to initiate a debate about surveillance, but instead has actively stifled it. Although, as he acknowledged Friday, he was a huge critic of the Patriot Act as a senator, his administration actively opposed privacy and oversight amendments in 2011. Similarly, in December 2012, just eight months ago, the administration opposed all oversight fixes to the FISA Amendments Act. It passed unchanged with little debate.