NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden May Be a Ron Paul Supporter (and Libertarian?)
Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower, former CIA worker and more-recent employee of defense contractor, Booz Allen, may also have contributed money to Ron Paul's presidential campaign during the 2012 election season. We know from the reports in the Guardian and from Booz Allen, itelf, that he worked most recently in Hawaii, and OpenSecrets lists an Edward Snowden of Waipahu, Hawaii, making a $250 donation to then-Rep. Ron Paul on May 6, 2012. An Edward Snowden of Columbia, Maryland, made a contribution to the Ron Paul campaign in the same amount two months earlier.
Snowden also told the Guardian that "I voted for a third party" on the presidential line in 2008, rather than either of the major party candidates, though he doesn't say which party he supported. He held out hope for Obama, but that was dashed as the new president continued and expanded the surveillance state.
It's not certain, though it seems likely, that at least the Waipahu Edward Snowden is the same one who exposed far-reaching NSA surveillance. Whistleblower Snowden also worked for Dell, identified as the employer of the Maryland-based Ron Paul supporter. A disgust with intrusive government that continues to relentlessly expand its effort to monitor people's communications and worries that "they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them" isn't proof of explicitly libertarian sympathies, but it certainly indicates somebody with similar concerns. A couple of checks cut to the Ron Paul campaign make a similar case.
