The men who represent Northeast Pennsylvania in Congress have leveled more criticism at the former NSA contractor who leaked that the federal government collects records of Americans' phone calls than at the government itself.
U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-17, Moosic, flatly said the contractor, Edward Snowden, should be extradited and prosecuted for violating federal laws against disseminating classified information.
"I'll tell you what. Trials are marvelous things. American jury trials are events at which the truth comes out," Mr. Cartwright said. "And we get to hear Mr. Snowden's entire story. We get to find out if there are axes that he had to grind, was he passed over for a promotion? That was why Benedict Arnold betrayed this country. Or is he (Mr. Snowden) a hero? Is he blowing the lid off of something that is a violation of existing law and somebody had to say something?"
Rep. Lou Barletta, R-11, Hazleton, and Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey also said Mr. Snowden should be extradited and prosecuted.
Rep. Tom Marino, R-10, Lycoming Twp., and Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey stopped short of calling for prosecution, but Mr. Marino accused Mr. Snowden of breaking the law and Mr. Toomey said he wants to know why Mr. Snowden leaked when it is presumed someone in his job should not.
In a June 5 story reported by the British newspaper The Guardian, Mr. Snowden, 29, said the National Security Agency is collecting lists of Verizon phone calls within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries even if callers aren't suspected of wrongdoing.
The NSA had the approval of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to do that, but the practice has enraged defenders of civil liberties. The court said the NSA could gather the numbers of both people on a call, where they are, when the calls are made and how long they last.
President Barack Obama, members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and national security experts have defended the practice. They say most of the phone records are never reviewed, are deleted after five years and can only be used or looked at with a court warrant.
Benefits cited
The Justice Department is preparing charges against Mr. Snowden, who has told The Guardian he is willing to sacrifice "a stable career" and family "because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, Internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."
Mr. Cartwright, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he does not know if the committee will have hearings.
Despite criticizing Mr. Snowden, Mr. Cartwright declined to criticize Mr. Obama or the call-collection program partly, he said, because it's hard to ignore the benefits of the programs. The NSA chief told a congressional committee Wednesday the program has prevented "dozens" of terrorism threats.
"I tend to fall a little bit more on the side of the privacy concerns, but remember we're talking about a couple of programs," he said, referring to the Verizon and a similar program known as Prism.
Mr. Barletta, a House Homeland Security Committee member, was unwilling to criticize the president, too, saying there's "a fine line between national security and civil liberties," but that he's "a national security guy."
'Telephone book'
Mr. Barletta said he thinks the program is adding to "mistrust of the government" created by the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative political groups, but simply collecting and storing phone numbers really isn't a problem.
"We have a telephone book. Telephone numbers are everywhere," he said. "The fact that they're stored and if there's a connection to terrorism, those numbers are stored and you could go back and see if (there's a problem). That's not the problem because we authorized that and that's the way it's supposed to work."
The main problem appears to be congressional intelligence committees that failed to inform Congress of what's really going on, he said.
"I think everybody's trying to find out what's going on here," he said. "That was news to me that billions of numbers were being stored. Not that there's a problem with it."
Mr. Casey said the country has done a good job overall of balancing civil liberties with national security concerns, but it requires vigilance. A review of how officials decide what's "relevant" to anti-terrorism efforts is likely, he said.
"Like a lot of things in Washington, people have opinions sometimes a little too early or prematurely. This is one where jumping to conclusions too soon is going to get both sides in the debate in trouble," he said. "I don't have any direct evidence that that's the case (that NSA is doing anything wrong). I think we're still kind of at the beginning of this."
As for Mr. Snowden, "we can't have an (intelligence) system where when someone thinks something might be going wrong, they disclose classified information."
"If he disclosed classified information ⦠he should be prosecuted," Mr. Casey said.
Efforts to interview Mr. Marino, R-10, Lycoming Twp., and Mr. Toomey were unsuccessful.
Their offices issued statements on their behalf.
Mr. Marino, a member of the Homeland Security, Foreign Affairs and Judiciary committees, said few members of Congress "had a full understanding" of the program's scope. He hopes the flap helps further define the balance between anti-terrorism efforts and civil liberties.
"In light of the recent IRS scandal, I share the concerns of many of my constituents who believe the current administration is far too willing to abuse any power it is granted," Mr. Marino said, though the phone-call program started under President George W. Bush.
He said a free press and government whistle-blowers keep government accountable, but stopped short of praising Mr. Snowden.
"I want to know why Snowden appears to have ignored proper channels and instead broke the law," Mr. Marino said.
In a statement, Elizabeth Anderson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Toomey, said he wants "to strike a careful balance between national security and civil liberties" and find out Mr. Snowden's reasons for leaking, but presumes someone with a security clearance should not leak classified information.
Mr. Toomey believes "those entrusted with this information should not have the discretion to leak information just because they disagree with a particular government program," Ms. Anderson said.
Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@ timesshamrock.com