Updated

By Bill O'Reilly

No matter what you think about government snooping, the cataloguing of phone calls and e-mails, the intent is to protect us from terrorism.

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GEN. KEITH ALEXANDER, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY DIRECTOR: In recent years, these programs together with other intelligence have protected the U.S. and our allies from terrorist threats across the globe to include helping prevent the terrorists -- the potential terrorist events over 50 times since 9/11.

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O'REILLY: So here is the question; should the U.S. government be more open about what it is doing to we, the people, in the name of national security? That question should be debated vigorously.

Today, President Obama spoke at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany. He is not nearly as popular in Europe as he once was because of all the national security stuff. You may remember that 50 years ago President Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate confronting the Soviet Union about its horrendous oppression of freedom in Eastern Europe. Today of course Germany is unified and a free nation.

But the German press is basically liberal and in a press conference there were questions like this.

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GERMAN REPORTER: There were a number of hopes in the world that were in a way shattered as regards, your legislative term for example the closing down of Guantanamo. Madam Chancellor the Nobel Prize winner, Obama is waging drone war also via Germany and is he allowed to do that according to German law?

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O'REILLY: Absurd question. The USA launches drones. No other nation is involved. That dopey reporter may be objecting to shared intelligence but when her family gets blown up by jihadists, believe me, her attitude would be different. It's clear to clear thinking Americans that the USA is continuing to wage an aggressive war against terrorism and that strategy is a good one. It has saved thousands of lives. But you'll never convince the far-left loons of that.

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REALCLEARPOLITICS: Do you think Barack Obama should be put on trial for war crimes?

AYERS: Absolutely. Every President in this century should be put on trial -- every one of them.

REALCLEARPOLITICS: For war crimes.

AYERS: For war crimes, absolutely.

REALCLEARPOLITICS: In the Hague?

AYERS: Absolutely. Every one of them goes into office, an office dripping with blood and then adds to it and, yes, I think that these are war crimes. I think they are acts of terror.

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O'REILLY: I wonder what Barack Obama thinks about his old pal Bill Ayers now? The question for all Americans is: "Are you willing to pay a privacy price to be safer? I am but I definitely want to know what my government is doing regarding snooping around the private communications of Americans. We the people have a right to know that.

And that's "The Memo."