Edward Snowden and the Paul family have always seemed to have a friendly relationship. Snowden himself has, in the past, donated to Ron Paul’s Presidential campaigns, and both have expressed an appreciation for each other’s work. Even Presidential Primary candidate, and Ron Paul’s son, Rand Paul, only referred to Snowden’s leaks of U.S./NSA spying info as a “civil disobedience” as opposed to “treason.”

This relationship, if you can call it that, looks like it will be continuing as Snowden praised Rand Paul’s 10-hour plus filibuster of the Patriot Act renewal during a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything).



Source: Imgur

A reddit user asked, “What’re your thoughts on Rand Paul’s filibuster against the renewal of the Patriot Act?”

Replied Snowden: “It represents a sea change from a few years ago, when intrusive new surveillance laws were passed without any kind of meaningful opposition or debate. Whatever you think about Rand Paul or his politics, it’s important to remember that when he took the floor to say ‘No’ to any length of reauthorization of the Patriot Act, he was speaking for the majority of Americans—more than 60% of whom want to see this kind of mass surveillance reformed or ended.

“He was joined by several other senators who disagree with the Senate Majority leader’s efforts to sneak through a reauthorization of what courts just weeks ago declared was a comprehensively unlawful program, and if you notice that yours did not take to the floor with him, you should call them right now and ask them to vote against any extension of the Patriot Act, because right now it looks like they’re going to force the reauthorization vote to occur during the dark of a holiday weekend.”

Snowden, like both Rand and Ron Paul, has been an ardent supporter of limited government and privacy — a sentiment that many Americans share. He expressed his opinions about the public’s preference to privacy but voiced concerns about how the public’s opinion would be cast by the wayside by politicians, and other entities with political pull.

“Jameel Jaffer probably has a better answer, but we know from very recent, non-partisan polling that Americans (and everyone else around the world) care tremendously about mass surveillance.

“The more central question, from my perspective, is ‘why don’t lawmakers seem to care?’ After all, the entire reason they are in office in our system is to represent our views. The recent Princeton Study on politicians’ responsiveness to the policy preferences of different sections of society gives some indication of where things might be going wrong:

“Out of all groups expressing a policy preference within society, the views of the public at large are given the very least weight, whereas those of economic elites (think bankers, lobbyists, and the people on the Board of Directors at defense contracting companies) exercise more than ten times as much influence on what laws get passed — and what laws don’t.”

Hailing from Austin, Texas, Brandon Morse has been writing about politics and culture across many websites for the last six years, with a heavy emphasis on anti-authoritarianism. Aside from writing articles, he is also known for voice acting and authoring scripts. He is an avid gamer, dog person, and has a bad habit of making vague references to things no one has heard about or seen. Follow him at @TheBrandonMorse on Twitter.

Click through the gallery below to read more from Morse in his previous EveryJoe columns:

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