National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden on Wednesday thanked supporters who launched a campaign for his pardon and said for the sake of democracy, future whistleblowers must not be silenced.
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Director Oliver Stone’s “Snowden” comes out this week – which gives immediacy to the ACLU’s effort, as does the calendar countdown on Obama’s ability to absolve Snowden.
“Yes, there are laws on the books that say one thing, but that is perhaps why the pardon power exists-for the exceptions, for the things that may seem unlawful in letters on a page but when we look at them morally, when we look at them ethically, when we look at the results, it seems these were necessary things, these were vital things”.
High-profile lawyers and celebrities including writer Joyce Carol Oates and actor Martin Sheen have already signed the campaign’s main prod, a petition at pardonsnowden.org that urges Obama to grant Snowden clemency before the president leaves office in January.
Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that despite the White House’s “not very positive reaction” initially, “we think it will change with the public’s response” to the campaign. “I’m moved beyond words by the outpouring of support”, Snowden said. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump haven’t expressed much support for Snowden, with Clinton wanting Snowden to stand trial in the USA and with Trump threatening execution.
Because of Snowden, Shah said, human rights defenders “are more empowered than perhaps ever before to challenge surveillance laws and surveillance tools that have as their objective and their effect the crushing and controlling of dissent all over the world”. That is not the kind of place we are supposed to be, and it doesn’t have to be. The Russian government granted him temporary asylum, but he has said he has applied for asylum from many other countries. “I love my country, I love my family, and I have dedicated my life to both of them”. The famous socialist Eugene Debs went to jail under the Espionage Act for advocating resistance to the military draft in World War I, and was pardoned two years later by President Warren G. Harding.
“I am comfortable with the decisions I’ve made”. He has also been accused of disclosing details of classified programs that have endangered national security in violation of the Espionage Act of 1917. The almost century old law, passed during World War I, is exceedingly tight and provides no provisions for revelations made in the public interest. “When someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government”. Snowden is trying to appeal to President Obama’s sense of morality.
In an interview with the Guardian previous year, Gordon-Levitt said that as an actor, he doesn’t want to be seen as an authority on whether Snowden did the “right” thing by leaking details of the NSA’s surveillance programs to the American public, but he does personally believe that what Snowden did was right. “That is why the policy of the Obama administration is that Mr Snowden should return to the United States”, said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. “The audience has to pay attention to this because we’re here, we’re in this age”, Stone explained.
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“People don’t know the background of where he came from”, Stone said. “It has a big impact on our work, and maybe that’s okay – maybe the American people say, “well, we see the costs, but there’s so many benefits to absolute privacy we want to live that way”.
