Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing... My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.

After the PRISM program was revealed, in an interview with Charlie Rose on 17 June 2013, when asked whether the program was transparent, President Obama stated that :-

It is transparent, that’s why we set up the FISA court...My concern has always been not that we shouldn’t do intelligence gathering to prevent terrorism but rather are we setting up a system of checks and balances? So, on this telephone program you have a federal court with independent federal judges overseeing the entire program and you’ve got Congress overseeing the program.

Politifact.com opines that

We don’t doubt that there are good reasons for secrecy at the court, but if you’re going to operate a mostly secret court, you also don’t get to crow about how "transparent" it is. The president can’t have his cake and eat it, too.