Three leading human rights organization launched a campaign to try and persuade President Barack Obama to pardon National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden of his theft and espionage charges in the United States before he leaves office.
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The ACLU is teaming up with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to lobby Obama to pardon Snowden before he leaves office.
“I think it’s no exaggeration to say this man changed the world”, Naureen Shah, the director of Amnesty International USA’s Security and Human Rights Program, said at a press conference in NY to announce the Pardon Snowden initiative.
They argue that Snowden performed a public service by exposing excessive and intrusive electronic spying by the intelligence agency and its English-speaking allies, including Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
Snowden, speaking via a video linkup during the press conference said “I do not myself ask for a pardon and I never will”.
At a press conference Wednesday announcing the petition, Snowden appeared via videoconference from Russian Federation where he now living in exile and said he was “deeply appreciative” and “moved beyond words” at the support for his case.
As a result of one document he revealed, the government was forced to acknowledge a program of bulk collection of all USA customers’ phone call data – times, dates and numbers dialed, but not content.
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Snowden, speaking Wednesday during a teleconference from Russian Federation, also continued to plead his case for a pardon, saying in part that bringing what he called “unconstitutional activities” to light should be forgiven, according to CBS News.
“And his conduct put American lives at risk, and it risked American national security”, Earnest said.
One thing is clear with Stone’s film – which he directed and co-wrote with Kieran Fitzgerald, adapted from the books “The Snowden Files” by Luke Harding and “The Time of the Octopus” by Anatoly Kucherena – and that’s that he regards Snowden with a decidedly uncritical eye.
Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is one of the leaders in support of granting Snowden a pardon.
“The only question that remains would be the length of his sentence”, Romero said. As long as Snowden remains holed up in Moscow, he might as well be Donald Trump, who is so smitten with Putin’s praise that he compliments him in turn.
A conviction on an espionage charge would be a tragedy, he said.
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Former government-contractor-turned-fugitive Edward Snowden, will be interviewed live via satellite from Moscow by filmmaker Oliver Stone following a screening of Stone’s biography “Snowden” in select theaters across the United States on Wednesday.
