Unsurprisingly, the White House formally announced Tuesday that it will not be granting a pardon to Edward Snowden anytime soon.
Immediately after Snowden was formally charged in 2013 with espionage, theft, and conversion of government property, supporters began petitioning the White House to pardon the famed former National Security Agency contractor.
In a brief statement, Lisa Monaco, the president's advisor on homeland security and counterterrorism, wrote:
Instead of constructively addressing these [civil liberties] issues, 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.
If he felt his actions were consistent with civil disobedience, then he should do what those who have taken issue with their own government do: Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and—importantly—accept the consequences of his actions. 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. Right now, he's running away from the consequences of his actions.
A fair fight?
One of his attorneys, Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union, declined comment.
Wizner has previously argued that returning to the United States is all but impossible because the Espionage Act of 1917, under which Snowden was prosecuted, won’t allow him to make a normal legal defense.
"The laws under which Snowden is charged don’t distinguish between sharing information with the press in the public interest and selling secrets to a foreign enemy," Wizner told The Guardian in 2014. "The laws would not provide him any opportunity to say that the information never should have been withheld from the public in the first place. And the fact that the disclosures have led to the highest journalism rewards, have led to historic reforms in the US and around the world—all of that would be irrelevant in a prosecution under the espionage laws in the United States."
Another one of Snowden’s US-based lawyers, Jesselyn Radack, reiterated to Ars that her client is not "running away."
"Snowden is in Russia because of the United States, which revoked his passport while he was transiting through there to Latin America," she said. "How does President Obama think Snowden should have ‘constructively addressed these issues’ when his administration has led the worst crackdown on national security and intelligence whistleblowers in US history? Earlier, President Obama stated that he had passed an executive order that Snowden could have used in order to go through proper channels. That statement was false. Presidential Policy Directive #19 was not implemented when Snowden blew the whistle on NSA and does not protect contractors like Snowden."
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