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Debbie Wasserman Schultz: NSA Leaker ‘Should be Extradited, Arrested, and Prosecuted’

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Photo Credit: AP

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the National Security Agency surveillance leaker should be extradited and prosecuted, CBS Miami reported Tuesday.

According to the local news outlet, the Florida Democratic congresswoman said that while she did not vote for the programs, she believes that the leaker, Edward Snowden should be prosecuted for revealing details about the Prism surveillance program.

“He should be extradited, arrested, and prosecuted,” CBS Miami quoted Wasserman Schultz. “That’s exactly what should happen to him because he violated the law. He violated America’s trust. He jeopardized millions of Americans.”

Wasserman Schultz’ tough talk echoes other lawmakers including New York Republican Rep. Peter King and House Speaker John Boehner.

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Leaker of NSA Info Disappears, Americans Flock to Legal Defense Fund

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Photo Credit: Reuters

A contractor at the National Security Agency who leaked details of top-secret U.S. surveillance programs dropped out of sight in Hong Kong on Monday ahead of a likely push by the U.S. government to have him sent back to the United States to face charges.

Edward Snowden, 29, who provided the information for published reports last week that revealed the NSA’s broad monitoring of phone call and Internet data from large companies such as Google and Facebook, checked out of his Hong Kong hotel hours after going public in a video released on Sunday by Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

The disclosures by Snowden have sent shockwaves across Washington, where several lawmakers called on Monday for the extradition and prosecution of the ex-CIA employee who was behind one of the most significant security leaks in U.S. history.

There were some signs, however, that Snowden’s stance against government surveillance and his defense of personal privacy was resonating with at least some Americans.

Supporters flocked to Snowden’s aid on the Internet – more than 25,000 people signed an online petition urging Obama to pardon Snowden even before he has been charged. A separate effort on Facebook to raise funds for Snowden’s legal defense netted nearly $8,000 in just a few hours.

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Glenn Beck’s Passionate Defense of NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden: ‘He has Issued Himself a Death Warrant’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: The Blaze

Glenn Beck on his radio show Monday passionately defended Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who leaked explosive classified information on the federal government’s massive surveillance programs.

“At least what he is doing is an act of heroism,” Beck said of Snowden. “What he is doing, coming out and speaking to the press, he has issued himself a death warrant.”

“He’s at least lost his life, and he may have his life taken from him,” he added.

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Ron Paul: ‘Thankful’ for Edward Snowden (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas praised NSA leaker Edward Snowden for his part in exposing how much information the government has been collecting from private citizens.

“We should be thankful for individuals like Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald who see injustice being carried out by their own government and speak out, despite the risk,” Paul said in a statement posted on the website of Campaign for Liberty, a nonprofit political organization which focuses on educating about constitutional issues, which he chairs. “They have done a great service to the American people by exposing the truth about what our government is doing in secret.”

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Snowden: US Intelligence Would Have Killed to Stop Me; Greatest Danger to Freedom is our Omniscient State (+video)

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Edward Joseph Snowden, 29, knew full well the risks he had undertaken and the awesome powers that would soon be arrayed to hunt for him… Snowden was spilling some of the most sensitive secrets of a surveillance apparatus he had grown to detest. By late last month, he believed he was already “on the X” — exposure imminent.

“I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks my end,” he wrote in early May, before we had our first direct contact. He warned that even journalists who pursued his story were at risk until they published.

The U.S. intelligence community, he wrote, “will most certainly kill you if they think you are the single point of failure that could stop this disclosure and make them the sole owner of this information”…

I asked him, at the risk of estrangement, how he could justify exposing intelligence methods that might benefit U.S. adversaries.

“Perhaps I am naive,” he replied, “but I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents.” The steady expansion of surveillance powers, he wrote, is “such a direct threat to democratic governance that I have risked my life and family for it.”

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RINO Peter King Calls for NSA Whistle-Blower’s Extradition

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Photo Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

The NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was condemned by US politicians and threatened with prosecution by the country’s intelligence chief on Sunday after revealing himself as the Guardian’s source for a series of explosive leaks on the NSA and cyber surveillance.

A spokesman for the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said Snowden’s case had been referred to the justice department and US intelligence was assessing the damage caused by the disclosures.

“Any person who has a security clearance knows that he or she has an obligation to protect classified information and abide by the law,” the spokesman, Shawn Turner, said.

Snowden had top-secret clearance to help run the National Security Agency’s computer systems but he was a contractor, hired by the giant US defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. The company issued a statement describing the disclosures as “shocking” and pledging to co-operate with any investigation.

It said: “News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm. We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter.”

[Editor’s note: It was reported last week that “Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said he will not attend a big Republican fundraising dinner, because although his schedule might have prevented it anyway, once he heard Sen. Ted Cruz was the headliner, it ‘made it easy.'”]

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Former NSA Official: US Now Living Under Soft Tyranny

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller The Obama administration’s targeting of journalists and their sources is an assault on the First Amendment, a former National Security Agency official and prominent whistleblower says.

“[R]eporters have shared with me privately that some of their most trusted sources within government are increasingly afraid to speak with them, even off-the-record, for fear that they will be monitored and surveilled,” Thomas Drake, a former senior executive of the National Security Agency and a whistleblower who was prosecuted by the Obama administration, told The Daily Caller in an exclusive interview.

“That’s self-censorship,” he said.

Drake explained to TheDC that he sees a “soft tyranny” enveloping the United States through the federal government’s targeting of journalists and their sources.

Such a fear of speaking to the press, he said, interferes with the freedom of association — recognized in the First Amendment as an essential component of free speech.

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CBS Star Reporter: Feds Hacked My Computers, Too

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Photo Credit: WNDCBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson has been a thorn in the Obama administration’s side for some time now.

The Emmy-award winning journalist has refused to let the president’s scandals be swept under the rug, interviewing “Fast & Furious” whistleblowers and chasing down Benghazi leads long after even her own network didn’t want to hear it anymore.

Now she says, however, her personal and work computers have been compromised, an intrusion that may be linked back to the White House.

“I can confirm that an intrusion of my computers has been under some investigation on my end for some months, but I’m not prepared to make an allegation against a specific entity today, as I’ve been patient and methodical about this matter,” Attkisson told Politico. “I need to check with my attorney and CBS to get their recommendations on info we make public.”

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State Dept. Leaking False Info to Smear Whistleblower

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Photo Credit: WNDThe State Department has been leaking to reporters false information to discredit Benghazi whistleblower Gregory Hicks, charged his legal counsel, Victoria Toensing, in an interview with WND.

Hicks, who testified May 8 before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is the former State Department deputy chief of mission who was in Libya at the time of the Benghazi attack.

Toensing told WND the State Department has been telling reporters that U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens could not reach Hicks by telephone on the night he was killed in the terrorist attack, Sept. 11, 2012, because Hicks was relaxing, watching television, and did not have his telephone with him.

“This is a total fabrication,” Toensing charged. “Telephone reception in Libya is notoriously unreliable. Sometimes you just don’t get your calls. And besides, the record will show Hicks reached Stevens by telephone within five or 10 minutes at the most after Stevens first telephoned him.”

Toensing said several reporters, whom she declined to identify, have called her to ask if the story about Hicks being AWOL at the time of the Benghazi attack was true.

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Benghazi Whistle-Blower a Democrat, Voted for Hillary and Obama Twice

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller A key Benghazi whistle-blower who has allegedly been punished for speaking out against the administration is a registered Democrat who voted for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

The lawyer of Gregory Hicks, the former U.S. deputy chief of mission in Libya who testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday, confirmed the information to The Daily Caller on Saturday.

According to the lawyer, Victoria Toensing, Hicks voted for Clinton during the 2008 primary, and for then-Illinois Sen. Obama in the 2008 general election. He again voted for Obama in 2012.

“The fact is he is a registered Democrat in Virginia. The fact is he voted for Hilary in the primary and Obama and then again for Obama,” Toensing said.

Toensing added that she did not know he was a Democrat until the day before the hearing.

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