Rand Paul has ‘mixed feelings’ about Edward Snowden
DES MOINES, Iowa — Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.. wants Edward Snowden to be punished in some way, but he also has “a great deal of sympathy for him being a whistleblower.”
The presidential candidate discussed his “mixed feelings” about the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked documents that disclosed the government’s bulk surveillance programs in an interview with Yahoo News chief Washington correspondent Olivier Knox. The discussion took place at the Yahoo News Digital Democracy conference on technology and politics at Drake University.
“I have mixed feelings. People are always saying hero or villain. We would not know about what our government has done and how our government lied to us without Edward Snowden. So he is a whistleblower and he did inform us of something the government was doing illegal,” Paul said. “On the other side, people say, ‘Well, if you don’t punish him, will there be any repercussions for revealing secrets?‘”
Snowden’s leaks in 2013 sparked a firestorm, and Congress passed legislation that called for the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records to be ended by the end of this year. Paul, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of government surveillance, said that it could create a dangerous climate if Snowden were not punished for leaking classified information.
“While he didn’t do this, would it set up a scenario where — if you had government secrets and you knew the name of 100 of our informants in the Middle East that are undercover, that are giving information to us — if we put that on the Internet, they’ll all be killed. So, there are secrets that a government does have to have. Some people say, ‘Oh, government should have no secrets. Well, that’s kind of naive. There will be some secrets, and they should be protected … to defend ourselves,” Paul explained.
However, Paul also gave some credit to Snowden, who took refuge in Russia after revealing a huge amount of classified information.
“At the same time, he did do a service, and so all the people who want to chop his head off and shoot him and hang him, I think that’s a bit excessive,” Paul explained. “But would there be no penalty? No. I think there probably has to be some. Even he, probably, I think, would end up accepting some if he could come home. And I suggested somewhat flippantly that he and [Director of National Intelligence] James Clapper could share a cell together. Maybe they’d learn a little bit more.”
Related Slideshow: Digital Democracy: Yahoo Conference on Technology and Politics >>>
Paul also said he’s looking at legislation that could help Snowden and other potential whistleblowers.
“I do have a great deal of sympathy for him being a whistleblower. I’ve also considered … legislation to extend the whistleblower statute. Right now, the whistleblower statute wouldn’t have applied to him. … People say, ‘Why didn’t he just go to his superiors and reveal that the government was lying?’ He was a contractor, so he wasn’t allowed to reveal, and he may well have gotten the information in a way that he wasn’t supposed to get the information anyway. But in the end, he did tell us something about our government that we never would have known, that the government was collecting all our information.”
On Monday, the NSA informed Congress it would end the bulk data collection program by Nov. 29. In the meantime, Paul said he thinks the agency has still kept collecting phone records at its data center in Utah.
“We did transform that. We didn’t get it exactly the way I wanted it, but we’ve stopped, supposedly,” said Paul. “We’re going to stop at some point, supposedly, sending all of this information to Utah. Funny thing is, I think we’re still probably doing it right now.”
