The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence condemned Snowden for stealing and leaking 1.5 million classified documents from secure National Security Agency networks.
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But US officials, while adopting measures previous year that regulate the National Security Agency’s (NSA) collection of US citizens’ telephone call metadata, have argued that the surveillance programmes are justified in that they protect US interests.
His disclosures shed light on a number of secret surveillance programs, including the government’s practice of sweeping up telephone records of millions of Americans.
“The question of whether I… should be pardoned is not for me to answer”, Snowden began.
He added, “The truth is that Edward Snowden and the journalists with whom he worked did the job that the House Intelligence Committee was supposed to do: bring meaningful oversight to the USA intelligence community”. “I look forward to his eventual return to the United States, where he will face justice for his damaging crimes”.
Snowden stole 1.5 million classified government documents that he had access to as an NSA contractor.
The committee says its report also found that a great majority of the documents stolen by Snowden had no connection to privacy or civil liberties.
“It is also not clear Snowden understood the numerous privacy protections that govern the activities of the [Intelligence Community]”, the summary says.
A coalition of groups Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union have launched a new campaign to secure an official pardon for NSA bulk surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The Guardian, which helped him disclose leak documents to the public, reported on September 13 that Snowden has stepped up a campaign for a presidential pardon.
NSA and Cybersecurity Subcommittee chairman Lynn Westmoreland said Snowden “did more damage to USA national security than any other individual in our nation’s history”.
A Republican-led bipartisan US House intelligence committee on Thursday released a report calling Snowden a “serial exaggerator and fabricator” who does not fit the profile of a whistleblower.
Two weeks before he began downloading classified information from the NSA system, Snowden was reprimanded after engaging in a “workplace spat” with his managers.
“America’s intelligence professionals take Mr. Snowden’s disclosures personally”.
In an interview this week, Snowden said he is seeking a pardon from Obama.
Civil liberties organisations have underscored the importance of Snowden’s disclosures, and have urged U.S. president Barack Obama to pardon him, while a film by prominent director Oliver Stone released on Friday argues Snowden’s actions were meant to “save his country”.
A U.S. Congress report Thursday on Edward Snowden, the “whistleblower” about U.S. intelligence aggression against private phone calls, has further dimmed his hope of returning home without being punished. “This report diminishes the committee”.
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“Finally, the Committee remains concerned that more than three years after the start of the unauthorised disclosures, NSA, and the intelligence community as a whole, have not done enough to minimise the risk of another massive unauthorised disclosure”, the executive summary says.
