President Obama expressed his concerns about how the Department of State handled classified information during a press conference on Saturday.
New York Times reporter Mark Landler asked Obama whether he had any concerns about the cultural issues in the State Department regarding the handling of classified information. The question came in wake of FBI Director James Comeygiving his recommendation to the Department of Justice to not prosecute Hillary Clinton for the use of her private email server while she was secretary of state.
Comey rebuked her, however, for being "extremely careless" and put to rest her talking point that she never sent nor received classified material on her server.
Obama did say that he had problems, many of which involved newer technologies.
"First of all, with respect to the State Department, I am concerned and the challenge that we've got is primarily driven by the changing nature of how information flows," Obama said. "The advent of email and texts and smartphones is just generating enormous amounts of data."
Obama mentioned that these newer technologies allow for the government to move more quickly and conveniently. However, he said there are risks including classifying information properly and ensuring safeguards against cyber attacks.
President Obama also warned against the over-classification of documents, which became a criticism from Democrats during the investigation of Clinton's private email server. He also touted that Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests are being processed faster than ever due to technology, but more requests are being made.