SPIEGEL: Mr. Kaleck, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats, described Edward Snowden as a lawbreaker during recent discussions with United States government representatives in Washington. Did that surprise you?
Kaleck: It did not surprise me, but I do find it shocking. Edward Snowden is a whistleblower, someone who followed his conscience and went public with a scandal that is global in nature: the threat intelligence services represent to all Internet freedom. The issue should be approached with more seriousness.
SPIEGEL: Are you suggesting that the interior minister hasn't done so?
Kaleck: I consider it scandalous to say, in some kind of gesture of submission to the United States, "We understand that you are treating him as a criminal and we view things similarly" -- when, at the same time, an investigative committee is conducting work in parliament that would have been inconceivable without Snowden. I am hopeful that there are people sitting on the parliamentary committee and also in the German government who will approach the problem in a more responsible way.