OBAMA: If government can't access phones 'everybody is walking around with a Swiss Bank account in their pocket'

In the light of the brewing war between Apple and the FBI, President Barack Obama cautioned in his keynote at SXSW that no one should take an absolutist position on the debate between privacy and public safety.

His key argument centered on the trade-offs Americans already make to guarantee their safety and well-being, whether it's going through TSA security screening at airports (something Obama joked he hadn't done in awhile but heard it's awful) or being searched at a drunk driving stop.

"This notion that somehow our data is different and can be walled off from those other trade-offs we make, I believe is incorrect," Obama told the crowd.

Yet, access to smartphones by government should be limited so that it can't "willlie-nilly" get into anyone's phones.

Obama declined to comment on the Apple case specifically, but he did deliver an impassioned address on both sides.

Here's what he had to say:

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