Journalist Glenn Greenwald calls claims that NSA leaker Edward Snowden is responsible for the terror attacks in Paris "unbelievably irrational."
In an interview Monday with
"HuffPost Live" Greenwald said the people blaming Snowden are current and former officials at the CIA, the NSA and other government agencies that didn't thwart the attacks.
"And so when they fail miserably in their job and dozens of people die, as just happened in Paris, of course they're petrified that people are going to look to them and say, 'Why did you fail in your job?'" said Greenwald, who first reported on Snowden's leaks.
"So what they want to do is point the finger at other people and say, 'Oh, don't think about us, don't look at us, don't ask why we failed even though we have all this money. Look over there at Edward Snowden, it's his fault.'"
Plenty of terrorist acts occurred long before the public ever heard of Snowden, he said.
Critics such as CIA Director John Brennan say Snowden's leaks of up to 1.7 million classified documents detailing how the agency monitors communications have pushed terrorists to find new ways to avoid detection.
"If you're somebody who wants to blame Edward Snowden for allowing the Paris attackers to plot without being detected, how do you explain how all these other people who perpetrated all these other complicated plots long before Snowden were able to do that?" Greenwald said.
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