THERE was something surreal, in a Kafkaesque sort of way, about Barack Obama's press conference on August 9th. Aiming to ease concern over the government's surveillance programmes, the president announced reforms that seem both obvious and overdue. Then he criticised the man whose actions set those reforms in motion. The president's proposals include creating a group of outside experts to assess the government's balancing of security and privacy. (When in doubt, create a task force.) More substantially, Mr Obama said he would like to change the proceedings of the secret court that approves electronic spying and interprets counterterrorism laws. Whereas now the court only hears the government's side of any argument, the president wants to see an opposing viewpoint represented.

Mr Obama also said he would work with Congress to create safeguards against abuse of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect data about Americans' phone calls. The administration will release the legal rationale for its snooping and the NSA will try to do a better job of explaining what it does, though thanks to Edward Snowden, Americans have a pretty good idea.

All of this comes after Mr Snowden leaked details of the NSA's surveillance programmes that were published in June. Mr Obama conceded that those leaks triggered a passionate and welcome debate about American snooping. But the president said Mr Snowden is no patriot. "I actually think we would have gotten to the same place [without Mr Snowden's leaks]," Mr Obama added, "and we would have done so without putting at risk our national security".

How that would have happened, without the intervention of Mr Snowden, is unclear. In a speech in May Mr Obama suggested that a review of surveillance policy was necessary "so we can intercept new types of communication, but also build in privacy protections to prevent abuse." But when senators asked for details about the breadth of NSA surveillance, they were stonewalled by the administration. When the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, was asked if the NSA collected "any type of data at all" on a large number of Americans, he simply lied.

Mr Obama laments that the debate over these issues did not follow "an orderly and lawful process", but the administration often blocked such a course. For nearly five years it appeared comfortable with the secret judicial system that catered to executive demands. It prized the power to spy on Americans, and kept information from Congress. Mr Snowden exposed all of this. His actions may not have been orderly or lawful, but they were crucial to producing the reforms announced by Mr Obama.

(Photo credit: AFP)