How can a democracy determine whether there should be government surveillance of the kind that the NSA is conducting if it has no idea that such programs exist? Indeed, Snowden’s leaks also revealed that National Intelligence Director James Clapper misled the US Congress about the NSA’s surveillance practices in his testimony at a hearing held in March by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Snowden prohlásil, že utajované informace uvolnil, protože „veřejnost musí rozhodnout, jestli jsou tyto programy a politiky dobré nebo špatné“.