Former attorney general says Edward Snowden performed 'public service'
Former United States Attorney General Eric Holder, the man who led the Justice Department as the administration of President Barack Obama prosecuted a record number of governmental leaks, caught a few people by surprise over the long weekend when he praised the man behind one of the largest leaks of government information in history.
"We can certainly argue about the way in which [Edward] 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 said on a podcast with David Axelrod, a political strategist and former senior adviser to President Barack Obama.
Holder's admission raised eyebrows given his prominent role in prosecuting leaks of governmental information. Snowden, a former contractor at the National Security Agency, leaked a pile of information about American data-collection to several journalists, setting off a national debate about security versus privacy.
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Yet officials within the Justice Department and other parts of Obama's administration have insisted that the record number of leak prosecutions was the result of a confluence of circumstances and not a decision made by Obama or any top-level official.
And the former attorney general has long said he hopes leak prosecutions are not his legacy at the Justice Department.
In July 2015, he said that the information Snowden provided to the public "spurred a necessary debate."
Holder added that he still believes Snowden's actions were "inappropriate and illegal," and "harmed American interests," but he indicated that he doesn't believe Snowden would be treated unfairly if he decided to return from Russia to the U.S.
"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," Holder said.
Snowden has said he'd be willing to come home if he had a "fair trial" that was free from the restrictions of the Espionage Act.
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Colin is Mashable's US & World Reporter. He previously interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect. Colin is a graduate from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not at Mashable, you can most likely find him eating or playing some kind of sport.
