Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said Tuesday he’s worried the U.S. government will assassinate Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old man who admitted to leaking information about two top-secret National Security Administration surveillance programs to the press.

“I’m worried about somebody in our government might kill him with a cruise missile or a drone missile,” Paul said on the Fox Business Network. “I mean, we live in a bad time where American citizens don’t even have rights, and that they can be killed, but the gentlemen is trying to tell the truth about what’s going on.”



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The Justice Department is investigating Snowden’s admission. Snowden fled to Hong Kong before the revelations went public.“[Snowden’s] not defecting, there are no signs of that happening,” Ron Paul continued Tuesday. “It’s a shame that we are in an age where people who tell the truth about what the government is doing gets into trouble.”Paul’s son, Kentucky senator(R), led a high-profile filibuster last month against the Obama administration’s drone policies. Paul and others said American citizens should not be targeted by drones, even if they are believed to be engaged in terrorist activities overseas.