Congress will be briefed by NSA officials this afternoon.
Classified information is designated as such for a reason and should be protected, U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent said Monday as FBI agents visited the home of one of his constituents whose son has admitted to exposing secret U.S. programs.
Those who choose to leak such information should be prosecuted, Dent said. That includes Edward Snowden, the 29-year old former National Security Agency contractor and CIA technical assistant who disclosed classified information about the U.S. government’s secret surveillance program to British newspaper The Guardian.
Snowden is out of the country, but his father lives in Lehigh County. FBI agents on Monday afternoon visited Lonnie Snowden's Upper Macungie Township home, but declined comment.
For Dent, there's little question over how authorities should proceed.
"Anytime there is a leak of this magnitude, it's pretty clear to me that the leaks need to be investigated and leakers should be prosecuted," Dent said.
On Sunday at Snowden's request, The Guardian disclosed his identity.
The leak details two NSA surveillance programs. One gathers hundreds of
millions of U.S. phone records while searching for possible links to
known terrorist targets abroad and the second, known as PRISM, allows the government to
tap into nine U.S. Internet companies to gather all usage to
detect suspicious behavior that begins overseas.
Congress will be briefed by NSA officials this afternoon.
While the leak has prompted concern that Americans' privacy and civil liberties are at risk, Dent said that it is imperative that people "not rush to judgment prematurely" as more information about the programs is divulged.
"Programs like PRISM and others, while controversial, have also likely stopped terror attacks and saved lives," Dent said.
Dent, a supporter of intelligence sharing and gathering provisions under the Patriot Act, said the blame in the situation doesn't fall on reporters but rather Edward Snowden himself for disclosing information that "should never have been divulged in the first place."
"We have to make sure that press freedom is protected," Dent said.
U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, a Democrat who represents parts of Northampton County, said he expects today's meeting with NSA top brass to be informative. Until then, like Dent, Cartwright said it's important that people do not rush to conclusions without hearing all the details.
"I am very conscious of the fact that I don't have all the facts," Cartwright said.
Cartwright said he'd be open to a review of policies under the Patriot Act if Congress deems it necessary but that doesn't mean there's a clear-cut answer for how to proceed from here.
"The time for us to stop discussing what the proper limits for surveillance are will never come," Cartwright said. "It's always appropriate for us to keep talking about it."
And as for Edward Snowden, the public debate on whether he is a hero or traitor should be decided in an American courtroom, Cartwright said.
"That is a totally appropriate question for an American jury to decide," Cartwright said."
U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Warren, said it's all about balancing privacy and security.
"As someone who has sworn to uphold the Constitution, I’m very troubled by some of the news reports regarding the NSA’s activities," Garrett said. "I think it’s wise to gather all the facts about these programs before jumping to conclusions, but a robust discussion about the proper balance between the limitations on government and our national security needs is warranted.”
Professors from area universities also weighed in on the issue Monday.
George Nation, a Lehigh University professor specializing in constitutional law, said there was nothing inherently illegal about the government obtaining metadata through phone records, but the process in which they gathered content information through secret court approval in the PRISM program should be further examined.
"Whether we've violated the Fourth Amendment or not is very hard to say," Nation said.
Lafayette College government and public service professor John Kincaid has experience with matters of espionage and government leaks as he served as the vice president and co-treasurer of the Pentagon Papers Fund, which supported the legal defense of Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo during their trial in the early 1970s.
Kincaid said the two cases are very different in scope but the legacy left behind by the Pentagon Papers trial has set a precedent for today's proceedings. With charges dropped against Ellsberg and Russo, the legal field was left open to future presidents to try and prosecute leakers. In that capacity he says, Barack Obama's "efforts to keep secrets and prosecute leakers far exceed those of Richard Nixon."
"In principle, Edward Snowden should not be prosecuted because the PRISM leak permits much-needed public debate," Kincaid said. "Politically speaking, however, the federal government will have to prosecute Snowden in order to avoid embarrassment and intimidate copycat leakers."
What exactly the FBI was doing at Edward Snowden’s father’s home on Monday afternoon is unclear. A man who showed FBI identification as he was leaving the home said they spoke to Edward Snowden’s family. He referred further comment to the FBI in Philadelphia, which declined comment to The Associated Press.
Neighbors on the quiet residential street say Lonnie married Edward’s stepmother about six years ago. They never saw Edward at the house.
Neighbor Jonathan Reck says Lonnie Snowden told him Sunday his son was “the whistleblower.”
A call placed to Lonnie Snowden was not immediately returned. And no one answered the door at the home.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.