Snowden, who lives in Moscow, is scheduled to appear via video link on Wednesday at a NY press conference, where advocates from human rights groups will call for a pardon.
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“I think what Edward Snowden did was allow us as a community to hold our government accountable”, Woodley told CNN.
Snowden has lived in exile since 2013.
After he provided top-secret documents to a group of journalists including MacAskill, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Barton Gellman, federal prosecutors charged Snowden with espionage.
Snowden has asked Obama for clemency in an interview with a United Kingdom newspaper, saying: “If not for these disclosures, if not for these revelations, we would be worse off”.
“Thanks to his act of conscience, America’s surveillance programs have been subjected to democratic scrutiny, the NSA’s surveillance powers were reined in for the first time in decades, and technology companies around the world are newly invigorated to protect their customers and strengthen our communications infrastructure”, the site states.
Snowden himself called on Obama for a pardon in comments published by Britain’s Guardian newspaper on Tuesday, arguing that it had been morally “necessary” to shine a light on mass surveillance. The site features a count down clock that will end when President Obama leaves office.
The 33-year-old was an IT specialist at the Central Intelligence Agency and was later assigned as a contractor for the NSA.
Snowden has previously said that he’d “volunteered to go to prison with the government many times,” but had not received a formal plea-deal offer. His asylum in Moscow has been a source of tension between the USA and Russia, with the United States president canceling a planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit in 2013 after Russia agreed to let him in.
To be sure, however, the characterization of Snowden as a fearless whistleblower who took personal risks to expose overreaching American surveillance programs is rejected by many prominent voices in Washington and in the military.
“But we believe that he should return to the United States and face those charges”, Earnest said. In the video player above, ABC7’s Entertainment Guru George Pennacchio interviews Oliver Stone and Joseph Gordon-Levitt about “Snowden”.
Gary Johnson of the Libertarian party has said that he would seriously look into it and would “probably pardon Snowden”.
If Obama pardons the biggest leaker of all time, then won’t he also have to pardon others – Chelsea Manning, former Central Intelligence Agency chief David Petraeus – who also shared classified information?
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday that the president believed Snowden should return to the U.S. to face charges.
Holder, a confidant of Obama, said Snowden had acted illegally, but had raised a needed debate over surveillance that had led to reforms.
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However, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump have come out in support of Snowden.
