VIDEO: Eric Cantor Talks NSA Whistleblower on CBS THIS MORNING
By: Caryn Robbins Jun. 10, 2013
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said today that he's gotten a lot of questions when it comes to Edward Snowden's role as a whistleblower on the NSA surveillance programs, in an interview broadcast live, today, June 10, 2013 on CBS This Morning on the CBS Television Network. Check out the appearance below!
"I think the question here is what exactly has this individual done? Where are these programs in terms of their status now if information has been leaked?" Cantor told co-hosts Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell.
"All of us are really very perplexed right now," Cantor said, adding that, "if anyone were to violate the law by releasing classified information outside the legal avenues, certainly that individual should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
Excerpts from the transcript are below.
CHARLIE ROSE: What stuns you about this?
REP. ERIC CANTOR: Well, I mean, I think that right now, we know that there are active threats against the United States. We have terrorist threats that continue. There are possible security incidences that continue. And that's just the world that we live in. We also know that we have to balance the fact that we need to safeguard civil liberties. So I do think that now the administration which is responsible for implementing this program is going to come forward and brief us on the Hill, and then we'll begin the committee oversight process to understand that if there are laws that have been broken, certainly the reports seem to indicate that, that if anyone were to violate the law by releasing classified information outside the legal avenues, certainly that individual should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
NORAH O'DONNELL: This surveillance program is known as PRISM. Did you know about it before these disclosures?
REP. ERIC CANTOR: There are a variety of classified programs that exist for us to, again, guard against a terrorist threat.
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