GOP Rep. Takes On Fox’s Chris Wallace Over Snowden: ‘As Far As Congress Is Concerned, He’s A Whistleblower’

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Representative Justin Amash adamantly claimed that not only did Edward Snowden reveal necessary information about NSA surveillance to the public, but also to many lawmakers as well.

“Without his doing what he did, members of Congress would not have really known about it,” Amash said. “There’s allegations that this information was given to Congress—of course Congress passed the Patriot Act, passed the FISA amendments act—but members of Congress were not really aware, on the whole, about what these programs were being used for, the extent to which they were being used. Members of the Intelligence Committee were told, but members who are rank-and-file members really didn’t have the information.”

This was similar to Glenn Greenwald’s statement this morning on This Week With George Stephanopoulos, in which he said that members of Congress had told him they were learning about the program through his reporting.

“So you still consider him to be a whistleblower?” host Chris Wallace asked. “Because…?”

“He may be doing things overseas that we would find problematic, that we would find dangerous, we’ll find those facts out over time,” Amash said. “But as far as Congress is concerned, he’s a whistleblower. He told us things we need to know.”

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