President Trump should grant Edward Snowden a pardon

President Trump on Saturday indicated that he’s considering pardoning whistleblower Edward Snowden.

We strongly encourage the president to do so.

Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who leaked classified documents about the federal government’s mass surveillance programs, has been variously hailed as a hero or a traitor.

Snowden, who is currently living in Russia to avoid extradition to the U.S., certainly broke the law.

But he did so not to undermine the safety and security of the American people, but to bring to light the federal government’s unconstitutional intrusions into our privacy.

Thanks to Snowden’s revelations, Americans learned how the federal government was not only trampling over the Fourth Amendment but doing so in secret, even from Congress. We learned how the NSA interpreted the Patriot Act so as to justify not only the bulk collection of Americans’ call and email data but to make it possible for the feds to search through that data without bothering to get a warrant.

Snowden has said one of his breaking points for deciding to leak documents about the surveillance state was the March 2013 testimony of then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, asked Clapper a simple question: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”

Clapper responded, “No, sir,” and when questioned further, “Not wittingly.”

Months later, Snowden, by way of journalist Glenn Greenwald, revealed that the NSA was collecting the call records of millions of Verizon subscribers on a daily basis.

Further disclosures revealed the collection and search of email content, the tracking of cellphone locations and even how NSA employees spied on their own “love interests.”

So, did Snowden break the law? Sure. But he did so to reveal far more troublesome behavior by the federal government and ignited a debate about federal surveillance and digital privacy that needed to be had.

Snowden made clear just how much the NSA was abusing its power and kicked off at least some efforts to put the surveillance state in check.

All things considered, Snowden deserves a pardon.

— Los Angeles Daily News, MediaNews Group