The Pardon Snowden campaign, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch (HRW), urgespeople around the world to write to Obama throughout his last four months in the White House.
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Edward Snowden, a former Central Intelligence Agency contractor who leaked classified government documents is not a whistleblower, but someone who risked national security and American lives, the White House said, dimming his hopes of a presidential pardon from Barack Obama before he demits office.
The former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder suggested last month Snowden “performed a public service”. “President Obama should pardon Snowden and bring him home to work for the security and privacy of everyone”. At a press conference in NY, broadcast on Facebook Live, Romero spoke alongside representatives from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, arguing for President Barack Obama to pardon Snowden’s crimes.
“The fact is the manner in which Mr. Snowden chose to disclose this information damaged the United States”, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. In that time, what was known only to intelligence insiders has shocked many legislators, the American public, and the world, and prompted the most thorough reconsideration of U.S. intelligence law and policy in decades. Some officials have acknowledged that Snowden raised legitimate questions about the extent and effectiveness of some electronic eavesdropping, particularly the NSA ‘s sweeping collection of “metadata” on domestic telephone calls by Americans, a practice that was curtailed after his revelations.
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“And his conduct put American lives at risk, and it risked American national security”, Earnest said.
The US government has charged Snowden with theft and two espionage violations for communicating defence information and communicating classified intelligence information to an unauthorized person. “I love my family”, Snowden said.
“We believe this is precisely the time for the USA president to act”, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said.
The campaign coincides with the release of a film, titled “Snowden”, directed by Oliver Stone.
Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, and Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, have listed their names in support of a presidential pardon for the whistleblower, joining the likes of George Soros, as well as actors like Daniel Radcliffe and Susan Sarandon.
“I asked him about Vietnam and he started telling me about it and then we started talking about war movies”. At the end of this article, take our poll and let us know if you think Snowden should be pardoned.
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It will be decades before the world grasps the full extent of what Snowden’s revelations did in the fight against the proliferation of surveillance, Shah said.
