Jimmy Carter Supports Snowden Disclosures; Says "America Has No Functioning Democracy"

July 20, 2013 • 10:26AM

Former President Jimmy Carter announced support for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden this week, saying that his uncovering of the agency's massive surveillance programs had proven "useful" because the disclosures inform the American public, reported the blog firedoglake.com, citing the German Der Spiegel magazine.

Der Spiegel was covering Carter's remarks at a closed-door event today of the Atlantic Bridge in Atlanta, where he asserted that "America does not have a functioning democracy at this point in time."

This isn't the first time that Carter has defended the disclosures about the National Security Agency's spying. On June 30, CNN published parts of an interview with Carter where he said that whistleblower Snowden "obviously violated the laws of America, for which he's responsible, but I think the invasion of human rights and American privacy has gone too far.... I think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive, so I think that the bringing of it to the public notice has probably been, in the long term, beneficial."