Domestic ‘spying,’ Clinton, Snowden focus of congressional debate

In Monday night’s 4th District congressional debate, Rep. Mike Pompeo at times seemed to be running against Hillary Clinton, while Democratic challenger Dan Giroux sought to tie Pompeo to the economic record of Gov. Sam Brownback.

Independent candidate Miranda Allen ran against the two-party system, and Libertarian Gordon Bakken ran against the size and scope of government.

The four appeared together onstage at the Wichita State University Hughes Metropolitan Complex for what is so far the only scheduled debate in the 4th District race before the Nov. 8 general election.

Throughout the evening, Pompeo fired multiple broadsides at the Democratic presidential nominee, at one point suggesting Clinton should be prosecuted along with Edward Snowden, the former government employee and contractor whose revelations of classified documents exposed the extent of domestic data collection in the war on terror.

“He (Snowden) intentionally mishandled classified information,” Pompeo said, quickly linking that to Clinton’s e-mail issue.

“I’d frankly like to see everyone who mishandled classified information prosecuted, whether that’s taking information out of the National Security Administration or storing it in Chappaqua, New York,” Pompeo said to cheers from the audience as he was speaking about Clinton’s private e-mail server.

“(They) should be prosecuted for having mishandled information not even so much because it breaks the law but because it puts each and every one of you at risk,” Pompeo continued. “This information is classified for a reason. It’s important that the United States’ government keep this information out of the hands of the Iranians and the Chinese and the Russians.”

All three challengers agreed that Snowden broke the law and should spend some time in prison for the way he released the information through journalistic channels instead of questioning the NSA practices through his governmental chain of command. However, they also expressed discomfort with the information the government was gathering.

“He should be tried for breaking that law; however, the government should not have been doing the things that they were doing either,” Allen said. “And if we are going to hold individuals to a set standard, our government should have the same standard. … I do believe that he broke the law, but maybe that law needs to be altered and changed so that people in this country are not being unfairly spied upon.”

Giroux said the data gathering doesn’t work as intended.

“There’s no doubt … the expansion of spying and accumulation of data did not prevent one terrorist act,” he said. “It has actually increased the size of government. It’s a program that does not work, and the top officials in the CIA even said that.”

Added Bakken: “I think the reason the government made this classified is not to keep the information from our enemies but to keep it from its own people. That’s not government that’s on track, and I think we should thank Snowden that he was willing to take the risk he did and inform us of that.”

That, and an assertion by Bakken that the U.S. was sending the information directly to Israel, drew an apparently frustrated response from Pompeo, for whom anti-terrorism and national security are signature issues.

“We’re not sending this information to Israel,” he said. “The United States’ government is not listening to your phone calls and reading your e-mails. The United States’ government is focused on a simple task, and that’s ensuring that we find terrorists wherever they reside.”

Giroux tried often to link Pompeo to Brownback, whose approval ratings have sunk low since his signature tax cut for certain businesses has apparently failed to deliver the economic shot of adrenaline he promised Kansas.

Giroux, one of 11 children, said most of his siblings have left the state because Republican policies have failed to create the kind of jobs that might have kept them here.

“When Mr. Pompeo came into office in 2010 and 2011, and he ran along with Mr. Brownback, he promised that he wasn’t going to bring you jobs but that he was going to bring you an environment where jobs would flourish,” Giroux said. “Well, he’s created a highway that goes one way out of the state of Kansas. That’s not right.”

Allen, meanwhile, repeatedly assailed the two-party system, which she said has led to corruption and corporate control of government.

“Sometimes, politics as usual gets so wrapped up in our own survival, Republicans versus Democrats, them versus us, that we forget that we are all truly Americans and we are all in this together,” she said. “If you are tired of the backroom deals and the closed negotiations with special interests, big-money donors and the elite millionaires, then vote for me.”

Bakken launched one of the most reacted-to zingers of the night when he said the government has grown far beyond the original bounds of the Constitution.

“There’s a list in there, and it’s an amazingly short list, of the things the federal government is supposed to do,” he said. “And if that was all the federal government actually tried to do, being a congressman would be a fairly simple job, and I think even Pompeo could handle it.”

This story was originally published September 19, 2016 at 11:09 PM with the headline "Domestic ‘spying,’ Clinton, Snowden focus of congressional debate."