GOP Congressman Credits Snowden With Changing Position On Patriot Act

Michael Burgess, a conservative Texas congressman, says Edward Snowden is responsible for changing his position on the Patriot Act.

Burgess, R-Tex., campaigned on a pledge to support the War on Terror and voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act in 2011.

But the conservative lawmaker changed his opinion due to Edward Snowden’s leak of government documents on surveillance. Explaining his about-face Tuesday evening during the House Rules Committee hearing on the USA Freedom Act, Burgess said that he remembered being told by intelligence officials that Section 215 of the Patriot Act would only be used to collect data on terrorists calling other terrorists in a foreign country.

“With the Snowden revelations,” Burgess said, he found out that Section 215 had been expanded by the NSA to include “every call everyone makes in this country,” a change that was only shared with congressional leadership, not rank-and-file members like himself.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.