Former Vice President Dick Cheney labeled Edward Snowden as a 'traitor' and said that he might be working for the Chinese government as he chose Hong Kong to escape.
Cheney told Fox News Sunday that Snowden had violated the trust of the government and his leaks had harmed the national security of the United States considerably.
"I'm suspicious because he went to China. That's not a place where you would ordinarily want to go if you are interested in freedom, liberty and so forth," said Cheney. "It raises questions whether or not he had that kind of connection before he did this."
"I think he has committed crimes in effect by violating agreements given the position he had," said Cheney. "I think it's one of the worst occasions in my memory of somebody with access to classified information doing enormous damage to the national security interests of the United States."
The former vice president, who played a crucial role in spearheading the government's expansion of the surveillance programs following the September 9/11 terrorist attacks, said that the programs were vital in gathering intelligence to prevent such attacks in the future.
"When you consider somebody smuggling a nuclear device into the United States, it becomes very important to gather intelligence on your enemies and stop that attack before it ever gets launched," said Dick Cheney.
The U.S. government is probably worried that the NSA whistleblower who is currently hiding in Hong Kong might hand over highly classified information to the Beijing government besides leaking information to the world, damaging the name of the U.S. government .
