Congressman slams NBC and Brian Williams over Snowden interview: An infomercial?

“Unfortunately, Brian Williams almost added to that last night, basically giving him an infomercial,” King said on Morning Joe.

“I really wish Brian Williams would have gone after him, and asked him if he had one piece of evidence that shows that the NSA has violated the law in any way.”

But the Baltimore Sun‘s David Zurawik complimented NBC News and Williams for their “best work in a long time.”

Overall, the questions Williams asked in the interview conducted in a Russian hotel room were probing, contextualized and consistently elicited revealing answers from Snowden, said Zurawik.

“In one case, NBC News did try to report on something Snowden said in the interview, his claim that he had tried to go through traditional whistleblower channels before taking classified data and fleeing the country.

“And it was hugely important that Williams told viewers NBC was able to report that “multiple sources” confirmed Snowden’s account of expressing his concerns in writing at least once to supervisors that NSA was overstepping its legal authority in gathering vast amounts of personal data from American citizens in the form of phone and computer records.

Yesterday afternoon: the U.S. government released an email Snowden sent in April, 2013 to NSA lawyers, voicing his concerns about the agency’s domestic surveillance programs.

Snowden's description appears to match parts, if not all, of the newly emerged email, which was made public on Thursday via the Senate intelligence chair, Dianne Feinstein, said the Guardian.

“Hello, I have a question regarding the mandatory USSID 18 training,” writes Snowden to a redacted address that appears to be in the Office of General Counsel.

He goes on to cite a list provided in the training that ranks presidential executive orders alongside federal statutes in the hierarchy of orders governing NSA behaviour.

“I'm not entirely certain, but this does not seem correct, as it seems to imply Executive Orders have the same precedence as law,” adds Snowden.

“My understanding is that EOs may be superseded by federal statute, but EO's may not override statute. Am I incorrect in this?”

In a reply which was cc'd to a number of redacted email addresses, Snowden is told by an unnamed individual that he is “correct that EO's cannot override a statute” but that they have the “force and effect of law”.

The Guardian said the issue was an important one in the context of whether NSA surveillance activities were permissible, as it addresses possible conflict between laws passed by Congress and orders given by the White House.

Senate intelligence committee members Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have long argued the administration may have been in breach of surveillance statutes in its activities. They were prevented from raising many of their concerns in public due to confidentiality requirements.

The NSA, however, disputes that this latest email exchange is proof of Snowden raising concerns about “interpretations of its legal authorities”.

“The email did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse, but posed a legal question that the Office of General Counsel addressed,” said the agency in a statement released on Thursday.

It added: “There are numerous avenues that Mr Snowden could have used to raise other concerns or whistleblower allegations.

According to preliminary Nielsen data, the Brian Williams interview with Edward Snowden averaged 5.91 million viewers in the 10pm hour last night. By comparison, Williams’ “Nightly News” has been averaging about 8.4 million viewers a night.)