Civil-rights icon and Georgia congressman John Lewis elevated NSA leaker Edward Snowden to a rather revered pedestal in history for his publication of classified information, comparing the 30-year-old to Mahatma Gandhi.

“In keeping with the philosophy and the discipline of non-violence, in keeping with the teaching of Henry David Thoreau and people like Gandhi and others, if you believe something that is not right, something is unjust, and you are willing to defy customs, traditions, bad laws, then you have a conscience,” Lewis told the Guardian. “You have a right to defy those laws and be willing to pay the price.”

He went on to compare Snowden’s plight to his own civil-rights work, mentioning the dozens of times he has been arrested, including while in Congress. “Sometimes you have to act by the dictates of your conscience. You have to do it,” Lewis said.

Lewis was one of 205 congressmen who voted for last month’s amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would have limited the NSA’s surveillance capabilities.

UPDATE: Lewis has called reports of his Guardian interview “misleading” and issued a statement that he does “not agree with what Mr. Snowden did.” He said he asked the Guardian to remove “praise” from its headline in relation to Snowden, which the newspaper agreed to. Here is Lewis’s explanation of the misunderstanding:

“At the end of an interview about the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, I was asked what I thought about Mr. Snowden’s actions. I said he has a right as an individual to act according to the dictates of his conscience, but he must be prepared to pay the price for taking that action. In the movement, we were arrested, we went to jail, we were prepared to pay the price, even lose our lives if necessary. I cannot say and I did not say that what Mr. Snowden did is right. Others will be the judge of that.”