Edward Snowden’s celebrity friends are launching a campaign to get him a Presidential pardon.
Timed to coincide with the release of Oliver Stone’s feature film, Snowden (hitting theaters this Friday), the Pardon Snowden effort (and its website PardonSnowden.org), launched Wednesday morning with a bevvy of high-profile supporters.
The list includes everyone from Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International to film stars like Susan Sarandon, Daniel Ratcliffe, Danny Glover, cyber-journalists Cory Doctorow and Xeni Jardin, and former Presidential candidate Lawrence Lessig.
I think Obama should @PardonSnowden. So does @ACLU, @AmnestyOnline, @hrw. Don't you? https://t.co/A6XhCaL2JO
— Susan Sarandon (@SusanSarandon) September 14, 2016
The effort is a full-court press, designed to pressure the Obama Administration into giving clemency to the exiled hacker, and allowing him to return home without facing charges for downloading and releasing thousands of documents that revealed massive NSA surveillance on private Americans.
Snowden, himself, over the past few days has tried to make a “moral” case for a pardon on his own, claiming that his revelations were a service to Americans, that his actions were morally correct, and that leaking classified NSA documents to journalists left Americans “better off.”
“I think when people look at the calculations of benefit, it is clear that in the wake of 2013 the laws of our nation changed,” he told The Guardian, the same paper that published his initial leaks. “The Congress, the courts and the president all changed their policies as a result of these disclosures. At the same time there has never been any public evidence that any individual came to harm as a result.”
The Obama Administration might beg to differ, evidenced by the fact that Snowden has spent several years in Russia without any public offer of clemency from the American government.
But today’s launch panel seemed to think Snowden’s actions were not simply neutral, but a driving force for global good. Panelists called Snowden a “check on power,” and focused on America’s drone and “extraordinary rendition” programs rather than on the national security implications of both domestic surveillance and Snowden’s leak.
Snowden is not a traditional whistle-blower, and the panels also focused on how Snowden could make the case that he could not go to his superiors at the NSA or at a variety of government contractors, to report the government’s massive privacy overreach. Some contended that internal efforts would have failed, while others claimed that the Obama Administration itself pushed Snowden to take the information public.
In his own appearance, Snowden didn’t want to talk about a potential pardon. “The question of whether I, as a whistleblower, should be pardoned, is not for me to answer. But I will say this: I love my country. I love my family. And I have dedicated my life to both of them,” he said.
National security experts speaking to Heat Street, however, say that Snowden’s contributions to cyber-security aren’t the point—and that the Pardon Snowden effort overlooks a key part of Snowden’s document dump: international surveillance.
“Even if we accept that Snowden was right to expose the two domestic surveillance programs, both he and his advocates routinely gloss over the fact that the majority of his leaks concerned offensive signals intelligence operations conducted overseas,” says national security attorney Bradley Moss.
“Those operations are exactly what NSA is supposed to be doing. If he wants to be a ‘global human rights’ activist, that is his business, but it does not justify pardoning him for leaking classified secrets about how NSA spies on other countries.”
Snowden’s supporters also ignore the human cost of his actions—particularly to his former co-workers, who are coming forward with how Snowden’s leaks affected their lives.
Snowden's ex-boss: Ed didn't understand the programs he leaked, is no kind of hero. https://t.co/GrjnU6l6C5 pic.twitter.com/Vhe7KXuDd8
— Kyle W. Orton (@KyleWOrton) September 14, 2016
Snowden’s boss, Steven Bay, who tried to help Snowden with his work absences because he thought Snowden had a rare form of epilepsy, was subjected to grueling interrogation by the FBI, had his NSA clearance revoked, and eventually left his job.
Pardon Snowden is asking for supporters to sign a petition to the President, asking the President to consider Snowden’s eventual pardon application. You can also buy a limited edition Shepard Fairey-designed t-shirt.
