Issues
Ron Paul: Fear Snowden could be target of drone assassination by Obama administration
Former GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul insisted on Tuesday that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is not a traitor, but he fears the U.S.
Former Republican Presidential Candidate, Ron Paul
government may send drones or a cruise missile to kill the 29-year-old, who has fled the United States.
“I don’t think for a minute that he’s a traitor,” Paul told Fox Business’ Melissa Francis.
“Everybody’s worried about him and what they’re going to do, and how they’re going to convict him of treason, and how they’re going to kill him, but what about the people who destroy our Constitution?” the former Texas Republican congressman asserted. “What kind of penalty for those individuals who just take the Fourth Amendment and destroy it? What do we think about people who assassinate American citizens without trials and assume that that’s the law of the land? That’s where our problem is.”
Paul said that “our problem isn’t with people who are trying to tell us the truth about what’s happening” as in the case of Snowden, and he fears that the U.S. government may try to kill the former contractor.
“I’m worried about somebody in our government might kill him with a Cruise missile or a drone missile,” Paul said. “I mean we live in a bad time where American citizens don’t even have rights and that they can be killed, but the gentleman is trying to tell the truth about what’s going on.”
Paul added that there are no signs Snowden is trying to sell U.S. government secrets to Russia or another foreign government, otherwise he wouldn’t have made himself so vulnerable.
“He’s not defecting, there are no signs of that happening,” Paul said. “It’s a shame that we are in an age where people who tell the truth about what the government is doing get into trouble.”
He pointed to the case of a CIA agent who was imprisoned for acknowledging that torture takes place at Guantanamo.
“This is not good that the American people are spied on and the secrets are kept in government,” he said. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be the other way around.”