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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In July, the White House rejected an earlier petition to pardon Snowden that had garnered more than 160,000 signatures.
The push comes as Snowden is set to re-enter the mainstream consciousness three years after infamous leaks about the NSA’s surveillance of millions of USA and foreign citizens.
The campaign coincides with the release of a film on Friday, titled “Snowden”, directed by Oliver Stone.
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.
At PardonSnowden.org, the petition includes a countdown clock to the second until Obama leaves office and has gained signatures from luminaries such as Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg whose disclosures revealed that the USA government lied to Congress and the American public about the Vietnam War.
Speaking by video link from Moscow, where he has been in exile since 2013, Snowden said that while the Founding Fathers created checks and balances to guard against government abuses, “whistleblowers, acting in the public interest, often at great risk to themselves, are another check on those abuses of power, especially through their collaboration with journalists”. “I’m moved beyond words by the outpouring of support”, Snowden said.
The Obama administration has urged Snowden to return to the USA and face trial. “It’s about our right to dissent”.
The video features cameos of Snowden himself, staring at a computer screen and walking through the woods, interspersed with footage of U.S. analysts poring over photos of ordinary citizens in various states of undress.
Snowden fled to Russian Federation soon after the NSA leaks became public in June 2013.
“I love my country”. “But I will say this: I love my country, I love my family, and I have dedicated my life to both of them. I think the intelligence community would go ballistic”. “These risks, these burdens that I took on I knew were coming, and no one should be in this position to make these kinds of decisions”. 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. The White House maintains that Snowden’s leaks “damaged the United States”. The ACLU provides legal representation for Snowden.
Obama’s administration also rejected a 2015 public petition for the pardon which had 168,000 signatures by stating that he should have not run away to Russian Federation and instead should’ve come to the U.S. and “be judged by a jury of his peers-not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime”.
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On the week the Hollywood version of the Edward Snowden story opens in theaters, the real life former National Security Agency contractor and his supporters hope the spotlight helps their cause. “The audience has to pay attention to this because we’re here, we’re in this age”, Stone explained.
