Printer-friendly version
Hear audiotape of Pelosi remarks on leaks
By Nadin Abbott
June 13, 2013 (Chula Vista)— During a visit to Southwestern College in the San Diego area on Monday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi fielded questions from local media on Edward Snowden. Snowden has fled the country over fears of possible espionage charges for leaking classified documents revealing that the National Security Administration (NSA) has been accessing phone records for millions of Americans.
The former House Speaker called for a balance between “liberty and security” in a press conference following a forum celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act.
National Security and NSA Leak
Over the weekend Edward Snowden came out telling Americans he was the source for a story charging the government of widespread spying on the American people. Snowden has said that he plans to leak more documents and indicated that he believes the NSA there have been more than 61,000 NSA hacking operations.
The federal government contends that accessing records of calls made and received by Americans is legal. However the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the operations.
Pelosi said of this case, “We don’t know all of the facts.” She added that “if there was someone leaking classified information that is against the law” and that “we have a responsibility as a country to balance security and liberty, privacy and strength.”
In her view, we might not like the laws, and may not even not voted for them, but “they are the law.”
Asked if she viewed him as a criminal or hero, Pelosi said, “No matter who he is, if he has leaked classified information, that’s against the law.”
Pelosi also said that she was in favor of a journalist shield law that never came to the floor. In that law “journalists had to prove that what they did was not harmful to national security, and we said no, it should be the reverse, you have to prove that what journalists did was harmful to national security.” Pelosi also said that President (Bill) Clinton vetoed the measure.
She also said it is not new that “we have concerns about privacy in the protection of our country.”
Speaker Pelosi also said that she had not heard of a developing story where Steve Clemons, editor of the Atlantic, has come out saying that he overheard a couple of Intelligence members in an airport state that they believed Greg Greenwald of the Guardian should be disappeared.
She noted that the Patriot Act approved by Congress included a provision calling for a Privacy and Civil Liberties Board.
“That board is supposed to be empowered to make sure that the balance between liberty and security is upheld. It’s as old as our country,” she said, noting that the founding fathers knew of the importance of those qualities and wrote a bill of rights to reflect that.
She called for “full enforcement” by that board so that “while the law is what it is, we want the interpretation to be in favor, or course, of liberty.”
Recent comments