Eric Holder Thinks Edward Snowden Performed Public Service Despite Illegal Act

Edward Snowden is a former subcontractor for the National Security Agency who made headlines in 2013 when he leaked confidential information about NSA surveillance activities. Now, Eric Holder, former U.S. Attorney General, who wanted to put Snowden to jail before, said that he performed "public service" by sparking a debate over surveillance techniques.

The former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder thinks what Edward Snowden did was a form of "public service", but he still insists that Snowden should pay the price for illegally leaking a pile of documents with classified information.

According to CNN, Holder told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files" which is a podcast produced by CNN and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics that the way Snowden did what he did can definitely be argued. He also added saying, "I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made."

In June 2013, Snowden was involved in one of the biggest document leaks in the history of the United States by revealing to the media outlets including the Guardian that the NSA is doing an indiscriminate bulk surveillance of the US citizens. The agency has also said that the mass data collection had been kept from Americans in order to protect them, The Guardian reported. Holder also said that what Snowden did jeopardized America's security.

The Belfast Telegraph reported that Eric Holder, who led the Justice Department between 2009 to 2015 when the incident happened, said he knew many ways in which the U.S. was damaged. However, Snowden and the newspaper that published his leaks in 2013 onwards have continuously denied the accusations.

"There were all kinds of re-dos that had to be put in place as a result of what he did, and while those things were being done we were blind in certain really critical areas. So what he did was not without consequence," Holder said. He also said that Snowden, who has spent all these years in exile in Russia, should go back to the United States to face the consequences of his actions.

"I think that he's got to make a decision. He's broken the law in my view. He needs to get lawyers, come on back, and decide, see what he wants to do," he said. "But, I think in deciding what an appropriate sentence should be, I think a judge could take into account the usefulness of having had that national debate."

Snowden tweeted the Podcast interview of Eric Holder with David Axelrod on Monday.

Former US Attorney General @EricHolder spoke about #NSA's mass surveillance with @DavidAxelrod. In his own words: https://t.co/HSrlRCD5X8

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) 30 May 2016