Obama discusses national security with executives of leading tech companies

US President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met Tuesday at the White House with executives from leading tech companies, during which they discussed several issues, including national security. The White House said in a statement that the group discussed a number of issues "of shared importance to the federal government and the tech sector." The group discussed "the challenges surround federal IT procurement." Obama "made clear his continued focus on improving the way we deliver technology to maximize innovation, efficiency and customer service, and encouraged the CEOs to continue to share their ideas on how to do so." The group also discussed "the national security and economic impacts of unauthorized intelligence disclosures. "This was an opportunity for the President to hear from CEOs directly as we near completion of our review of signals intelligence programs, building on the feedback we've received from the private sector in recent weeks and months, " the statement affirmed. The White House stressed that "the President made clear his belief in an open, free, and innovative internet and listened to the group's concerns and recommendations." Obama also "made clear that we will consider their input as well as the input of other outside stakeholders as we finalize our review of signals intelligence programs." For their part, the technology companies issued a short joint statement following the meeting saying "we appreciated the opportunity to share directly with the President our principles on government surveillance that we released last week and we urge him to move aggressively on reform."