Pres. Jimmy Carter defends Snowden, also says: "America has no functioning democracy."
The Obama administration tried to placate Europe's anger over spying programs. Not so ex-President Jimmy Carter: The Democrat attacked the U.S. intelligence sharply. The disclosure by whistleblowers Snowden was "useful."
■ In the wake of the NSA spy [surveillance] scandal, Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has sharply criticized the American political system. "America has no functioning democracy," Carter said Tuesday at a meeting of the "Atlantic Bridge" in Atlanta.
■ Previously, [Carter] had been very critical of the practices of U.S. intelligence. "I think the invasion of privacy has gone too far," Carter told CNN. "And I think that [....] the secrecy was excessive." Commenting on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Carter said [these] revelations in the long run were "likely to be useful because they inform the public."
■ Carter has repeatedly warned that the United States' moral authority [has] declined due to excessive restriction of civil rights. Last year he wrote in an article in the New York Times saying recent laws have [...][allowed] "unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining of our electronic communications."
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