Movie talk spurs rights groups to urge pardon for Snowden
WASHINGTON — Three human rights groups on Wednesday urged President Barack Obama to pardon Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who leaked secret documents about National Security Agency surveillance in 2013 and is living in Russia as a fugitive from criminal charges.
The start of the campaign coincides with the theatrical release this week of the movie “Snowden,” a sympathetic, fictionalized version of his story by director Oliver Stone. Together, the film and the campaign, called “Pardon Snowden,” opened a new chapter in the debate about the surveillance Snowden revealed and about whether his leaks will go down in history as whistleblowing or treason.
The campaign, organized by the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, includes a petition signed by technologists, law professors and celebrities. At a news conference, Snowden appeared by remote video link, thanking the organizers and arguing his fate will have a broader impact.
“If we are to sustain a free society through the next century, we must ensure that whistleblowers can act again, and safely, as a check on future abuses of power,” Snowden said. If he is sentenced to a long prison term, he added, people in the future who have information the public needs to know will be afraid to come forward.
The chances Obama will issue a pardon appear slim. In late July, Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, Lisa Monaco, rejected the idea as she responded on behalf of the administration to a 2-year-old petition on the White House’s website that asked the president to pardon him.
“Mr. Snowden’s dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it,” she wrote, adding he “should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime.”
Snowden said he could not receive a fair trial because he was charged under the Espionage Act, which does not permit defendants to argue to the jury they should be acquitted because their whistleblowing served the public interest.
In June 2013, soon after The Guardian and The Washington Post began publishing revelations about secret NSA surveillance and data collection programs, Snowden identified himself as the source of the information. He was in Hong Kong, and he later sought to travel to Latin America via Moscow and Cuba. But the State Department revoked his passport, stranding him in Russia.