SurveillanceSnowden performed “public service” but should be punished: Eric Holder

Published 31 May 2016

Eric Holder, the former U.S. Attorney General, has said Edward Snowden performed a “public service” by triggering a debate over surveillance techniques. Holder added, however, that he believed Snowden should be punished for leaking classified intelligence information which threatened U.S. national security.

Edward Snowden prompts re-examination of surveillance methods // Source: theconversation.com

Eric Holder, the former U.S. Attorney General, has said Edward Snowden performed a “public service” by triggering a debate over surveillance techniques. Holder added, however, that he believed Snowden should be punished for leaking classified intelligence information which threatened U.S. national security.

“We can certainly argue about the way in which Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made,” Holder told David Axelrod on a podcast produced by CNNand the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.

“Now I would say that doing what he did, and the way he did it, was inappropriate and illegal. He harmed American interests.”

The Verge reports that Holder, who served as attorney general from 2009 to 2015, said he knew of several ways in which the United States was damaged.

“I know there are ways in which certain of our agents were put at risk, relationships with other countries were harmed, our ability to keep the American people safe was compromised,” he said. 

“There were all kinds of re-dos that had to be put in place as a result of what he did, and while those things were being done we were blind in certain really critical areas. So what he did was not without consequence.”

Holder said that Snowden should return to the United States to deal with the consequences of his actions.

“I think that he’s got to make a decision. He’s broken the law in my view. He needs to get lawyers, come on back, and decide, see what he wants to do,” he said.

“But, I think in deciding what an appropriate sentence should be, I think a judge could take into account the usefulness of having had that national debate.”

At a University of Chicago Institute of Politics event earlier this month, Snowden, appearing via videoconference, said he would return to the United States if he could receive a fair trial.

“I’ve already said from the very first moment that if the government was willing to provide a fair trial, if I had access to public interest defenses and other things like that, I would want to come home and make my case to the jury,” he told University of Chicago Law professor Geoffrey Stone.

“But, as I think you’re quite familiar, the Espionage Act does not permit a public interest defense. You’re not allowed to speak the word ‘whistleblower’ at trial.”