I Never Said Snowden Is a Hero; He Should Be Tried

Edward Snowden broke the law. There are penalties for breaking the law, and I believe he should be prosecuted.

Edward Snowden broke the law. There are penalties for breaking the law, and I believe he should be prosecuted. I do not overlook or believe our country should condone people who have access to military secrets to reveal those secrets.

But that isn't the whole picture, and too many people on both sides of this equation are trying to make a very gray subject black and white. The Journal is the latest to do so in your editorial "Rand Paul's Snowden Apologia" (Jan. 8).

For advocates of throwing the book at Mr. Snowden, we should ask: Are they going to ignore the perjury of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper? Mr. Clapper broke the law when he lied to Congress. So an important question, ignored by advocates of frontier justice for Mr. Snowden, is do they seek clemency for James Clapper?

I suffer condemnation by the Journal for expressing the opinion that a death sentence or life in prison is not the appropriate sentence for Mr. Snowden. The Journal claims I "exaggerate" the possible sentence. Mr. Snowden's accusers claim he violated the Espionage Act of 1917 for which the penalty is, indeed, death or life in prison. Senators such as Dianne Feinstein, former officials John Bolton and Ralph Peters, and even Speaker John Boehner, have accused Mr. Snowden of "treason," a crime which is indeed punishable by death.

You claim "in essence" I've asked for a plea bargain for Mr. Snowden. I've made no specific legal judgment other than to say that I do support laws against national security leaks. I have not argued, as you allege, that Mr. Snowden is a hero. I have stated that history will decide.

Further, his leaks that had nothing to do with unconstitutional domestic surveillance may have caused real damage to our national security and relations with other countries.

There are advantages to having Mr. Snowden face trial: We could determine how he breached our security and to what extent and how much information was shared with foreign countries. Ruling out the harsher end of the sentencing spectrum might encourage him to return for trial.

Standing trial would allow a judge to determine whether Mr. Snowden's law-breaking served a higher purpose and thus sentence him accordingly and also whether some of his actions went too far in endangering our security and aiding our enemies, and also sentence him for that accordingly.

But legally and morally, the actions of the individual lawbreaker must be weighed against the government law-breaking that he went to great lengths to reveal. I do not believe we must give up this much of our liberty for security, nor do I apologize for standing up for the Fourth Amendment, which restricts such frighteningly unlimited power.

Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.)