Al Gore: Snowden Revealed Crimes 'Way More Serious' Than Any He Committed

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on Tuesday said that Edward Snowden’s revelations showed the NSA’s “threat to democracy” and revealed violations by the agency “way more serious” than any crime committed by the whistleblower.

Gore made the comments at the Southland Conference in Nashville where he was a speaker.

Asked about his reaction when the revelations of vast NSA surveillance began to come out, Gore said he felt “dismay that it had gone as far as it had,” and said the overreach was a “threat to democracy.”

“If any of us are put in a position where we have to self-censor and think twice about what we write in an email, or what we click on for fear that somebody reading a record of this may misunderstand the reason why we looked up some disease or something. . . that kills democracy,” he said.

Snowden emphasized this point as well, saying in a live Q&A in January, “Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.”

“We need to restore the freedom of the internet, give the national security authorities the right to guard against legitimate threats,” Gore continued.

But “if you’re looking for a needle in a haystack,” Gore said, referencing the metaphor from NSA expert James Bamford, “your best option is not to go out and collect a lot more hay and pile it on top of the haystack.” Common sense can be used to prioritize, he said, rather than using the collect-it-all approach currently taken.

Asked the oft-repeated question, “Is Edward Snowden a traitor or a hero?” Gore said he, like most people, doesn’t put the former NSA worker in either category.