Rand Paul Says No Pardon for SnowdenOr the US Government
Rand Paul Says No Pardon for Snowden—Or the US Government
By ISSIE LAPOWSKY - 11.12.15.
People always want to cast Edward Snowden as a hero or as a villain, but Rand Paul says he has “mixed feelings.”
“We wouldn’t know what our government has done without Edward Snowden,” he said on stage at the Yahoo Digital Democracy conference in Des Moines, Iowa, today.
At the same time, he said, “There are secrets the government does have to have,” and because Snowden divulged a whole lot of those secrets, the Kentucky senator and presidential hopeful said Snowden should have to face some sort of penalty if and when he returns to the United States.
Paul was quick to add, though, that the punishment ought to be be proportionate to the penalties faced by sitting government leaders like James Clapper, the national director of intelligence who told a Senate hearing in 2013 that the US was not collecting Americans’ data—when, in fact, the National Security Administration was doing just that. Clapper has since defended himself, saying that he misspoke. But he hasn’t convinced Paul, an ardent anti-surveillance advocate, who suggested on stage, as he has in the past, that Clapper and Snowden “could share a cell together.”
But while Paul believes there should be consequences for people like Snowden, he also believes there should be protections. Specifically, he wants to expand whistleblower laws so that they protect contractors like Snowden, who has claimed that he had “no proper channels” to report the NSA’s activity because he wasn’t a full-time government employee.
Full article:
http://www.wired.com/2015/11/rand-paul-says-no-pardon-for-snowden-or-the-us-government/
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