https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/05/01/snowden-why-hasnt-the-director-of-national-intelligence-been-punished-for-lying-to-congress/
Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, and one of the reporters who first broke the news of Snowden's documents, Laura Poitras, received a Ridenhour Truth-Teller prize Wednesday to a standing ovation at the National Press Club.
"A year ago, there's no way I could have imagined I would end up here being honored in this room," said Snowden, who spoke via Google Hangout in a livestream that occasionally lagged and stuttered. "When I began this, I never expected to receive the level of support that I did from the public."
Snowden leaked classified documents that exposed the NSA's massive global surveillance programs. On Wednesday, Snowden said knowing what had happened to others who had spoken out against government practices, including Thomas Drake (recipient of a 2011 Ridenhour prize), made the prospect of coming forward "intimidating." But Snowden said he came forward because he thought it was "the right thing to do."
He said there were other NSA employees uneasy with some of the spy agency's actions and felt that things "had gone too far." But these employees felt they could not speak publicly about their discomfort, Snowden said.
Snowden also repeatedly compared his actions with that of Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, who denied that the NSA was "wittingly" collecting data on millions of Americans in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last spring – a claim at odds with revelations about domestic phone records collection as a result of documents provided by Snowden. Clapper later apologized to Congress in a letter, saying his answer was "clearly erroneous."
But in a letter to the editor in the New York Times earlier this year, ODNI general counsel Robert Litt denied that Clapper had "lied" to Congress, but rather said he made an honest mistake. Although ODNI was provided the question in advance on the hearing by Senator Ron Wyden (D, Oregon), Clapper had not seen it, wrote Litt, and answered the question while having American's content information in mind. When his mistake was pointed out days later, Clapper corrected the issue with Wyden, but Litt argues "it could not be corrected publicly because the program involved was classified." ..