NSA leaker Edward Snowden blasted Congress’ willingness to sign off on massive federal surveillance of American citizens in an online interview with The Guardian (UK) on Monday. He said “there was no single moment” that made him want to leak news of the surveillance to the press. Instead, he said, “It was seeing a continuing litany of lies from senior officials to Congress – and therefore the American people – and the realization that Congress, specifically the Gang of Eight, wholly supported the lies that compelled me to act. Seeing someone in the position of James Clapper – the Director of National Intelligence – baldly lying to the public without repercussion is the evidence of a subverted democracy. The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.”
He added that other leakers should step forward because “This country is worth dying for.”
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).
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