Obama Vows U.S. Response to Sony Hack Attack

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama said Friday that Sony Pictures Entertainment "made a mistake" in shelving a satirical film about a plot to assassinate North Korea's leader. He declared the United States would respond "in a place and manner and time that we choose" to a hack attack on Sony that the FBI blamed on the communist government.

Speaking of Sony executives, Obama said at a year-end news conference, "I wish they had spoken to me first. ... We cannot have a society in which some dictatorship someplace can start imposing censorship."

Obama said he imagined situations in which dictators "start seeing a documentary that they don't like or news reports that they don't like."

The president spoke not long after the FBI accused the North Korean government of being responsible for the hacking attack against Sony, providing the most detailed accounting to date of the expensive break-in. Obama's pointed criticism of Sony shifted focus to whether the studio would reverse its decision, as some leading celebrities - including actor George Clooney and comedian Patton Oswalt - have recommended.

"Sony is a corporation. It suffered significant damage. There were threats against its employees. I am sympathetic to the concerns that they faced," he said. "Having said all that, yes, I think they made a mistake."