10:53 p.m. EDT March 21, 2014  President Obama told executives with Facebook, Google, and other Internet businesses Friday that new surveillance policies wIll be designed to assure privacy while maintaining security.

"the President reiterated his Administration's commitment to taking steps that can give people greater confidence that their rights are being protected while preserving important tools that keep us safe," said a White House statement on Obama's meetings with Internet executives.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and others have criticized National Security Agency programs as invasive threats to privacy. Obama announced a series of reforms in January intended to provide more transparency on government surveillance programs while protecting some of the core functions.

Obama looked forward to a "dialogue" with the Internet executives about "the issues of privacy, technology, and intelligence," said White House spokesman Jay Carney before the meeting began.

Zuckerberg and Eric Schmidt of Google were among the president's guests.

Last week, Zuckerberg called Obama in the wake of news reports about NSA activity on the Internet.

In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg said the government "should be the champion for the Internet, not a threat. They need to be much more transparent about what they're doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst."

Other tech executives invited to the Obama meeting: Reed Hastings of Netflix, Drew Houston of Dropbox, Alexander Karp of Palantir, and Aaron Levie of Box.