'Edward Snowden did this country a great service.

Let him come

home'
Bernie Sanders, Daniel Ellsberg, former members of the NSA and more weigh in on whether Obama
should grant clemency to the divisive whistleblower.

Bernie Sanders leads a chorus of prominent public figures calling for clemency, a plea agreement or,
in several cases, a full pardon for the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Writing in the Guardian, the runner-up in the race to become Democratic presidential candidate
argues that Snowden helped to educate the American public about how the NSA violated the
constitutional rights of citizens with its mass surveillance program. Sanders argues that there should
be some form of resolution that would acknowledge both the “troubling revelations” that he had
brought to light and the crime that he committed in doing so, that would “spare him a long prison
sentence or permanent exile”.

Sanders joins 20 other prominent public figures – from Hollywood actors and rock musicians to
politicians, professors and Black Lives Matter activists – who call on Barack Obama to find some way
of allowing Snowden to return home to the US from exile in Russia. The Guardian’s voices are raised
in the week that Oliver Stone’s film, Snowden, is released in the US and that a coalition of groups
including the ACLU and Amnesty International launch a new campaign for a presidential pardon
before Obama steps down.

Among the writers in the Guardian are Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who released the Pentagon
Papers in the 1970s, who calls for Snowden to be allowed to make a public interest defense in any US
trial. From the world of arts, actor Susan Sarandon and director Terry Gilliam, novelist Barry Eisler
and Sonic Youth singer Thurston Moore all make impassioned calls for an Obama pardon.

Senior politicians from both sides of the Atlantic, including former US senator Mark Udall, UK
parliamentarian David Winnick and German Green party member Hans-Christian Ströbele all fly the
flag for a Snowden homecoming. Similar calls are made by public intellectuals including Noam
Chomsky, Cornel West and Sanders’ former Democratic presidential rival and Harvard law professor,
Lawrence Lessig.

Not everyone writing in the Guardian today is empathetic towards the whistleblower. The former
director of the NSA, Michael Hayden, says Snowden should face “the full force of the law” were he
to come home. Stewart Baker, also latterly of the NSA, argues that Snowden’s leak caused harm to
US national interests – a contention that is strongly disputed by many of the other people writing
here.

Daniel Ellsberg

Former US military analyst who released the 1971 Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam war, and
who met Snowden in Moscow last year

Ed Snowden should be freed of the legal burden hanging over him. They should remove the
indictment, pardon him if that’s the way to do it, so that he is no longer facing prison.

Advertisement
The NSA and US government have revealed no evidence that the information Ed Snowden released
has caused any harm. Inconvenience, yes, embarrassment certainly, but what has truly been revealed
is that the NSA itself was unquestionably committing international, domestic and constitutional
crimes.

Were the government to have any evidence that Snowden revealed information that should have been
protected, I think he should be judged by a jury. I was the first person to be tried for a leak under
the Espionage Act, and I certainly didn’t object to my case being weighed by a jury, although it never
came to that. But there has to be a public interest defense, which doesn’t exist in US law now.

As things stand, I think the chance that this or any president will pardon Snowden is zero. They
wouldn’t dare to challenge the intelligence community that remains so hostile to him. Nor does
Snowden have any chance of a fair trial under the Espionage Act, any more than I did.

So nothing would be gained by him coming back and standing trial unless the Espionage Act were
changed to permit that public interest defense. He’s said to me that he’s willing to come back and
serve one, two or conceivably three years as a result of a plea bargain arranged beforehand, but they
haven’t offered him one as far as I’m aware.

Michael Hayden

Former director of the National Security Agency

What Edward Snowden did amounted to the greatest hemorrhaging of legitimate American secrets in
the history of my nation.

If he wants to come home, and that’s his choice, I think he should face the full force of the law.
Then he would be able to mount his defense. I would not be supportive of a public interest defense,
however, because the American people declare some things to be legal and some things to be illegal,
and don’t anoint the individual citizen to decide whether that’s a good or a bad idea.

If Snowden really claims that his actions amounted to genuine civil disobedience, he should go to
some English language bookstore in Moscow and get a copy of Henry David Thoreau’s Civil
Disobedience. Thoreau points out clearly that civil disobedience gets its moral authority by the
willingness to suffer the penalties from disobeying a law, even if you think that law is unjust.

It would be incredibly unwise for this president to offer a pardon. President Obama and his
successors are dependent on the 100,000-plus people inside the American intelligence community –
the people Edward Snowden betrayed. For any president to align himself with Snowden’s approach in
this controversy would carry an incredible cost to the spirit and morale of the intelligence
community.

Noam Chomsky

Professor of linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

President Obama should provide Edward Snowden with a form of clemency that would permit him to
return home to the United States – and still more appropriately in my view, remove all threats of
criminal investigation as well.
Snowden should, in my opinion, be welcomed home with honors for his service to his country, and for
his courage and integrity in the manner in which he performed this service. Apart from exceptional
circumstances, citizens have every right to know what their government is doing, in particular what it
is doing to them – in the present case, as Snowden revealed to us, keeping citizens under extensive
and deeply intrusive surveillance.

No case has been made that relevant exceptional circumstances prevail. As well known, initial claims
about prevention of terrorist actions collapsed under investigation, and no credible case has been
made that the massive invasion of privacy, arguably in violation of constitutional rights, is warranted.
Snowden made every effort to follow established procedures for bringing this crucial information to
the general public. When these failed, he took the courageous and honorable step of transmitting the
information through the medium of careful and highly reliable and experienced journalists, who, along
with him, carefully vetted the material to ensure that no possible harm would be caused to individuals
or to security.

Citizens of the United States – and indeed the world, considering the extraordinary range of the
operations that have been revealed – are very much in Snowden’s debt. He should certainly not be
punished in any way for the services that he has performed in the interests of democracy and civil
rights. At the very least, he should be granted the full freedom to return home without fear of
prosecution, and, I very much hope, to be welcomed with the respect that he richly deserves.

Lawrence Wilkerson

Retired US army colonel and former chief of staff to US secretary of state Colin Powell

Frankly, I believe that were Snowden to return to the US, he would be treated badly; so much so,
that even if he were fully pardoned – and could convince himself that that were truly so – he still
would still be treated very badly.

That, sadly, is the nature of our country these days (some would argue we have always been thus and
point to all manner of cases from the Salem witch trials to Alger Hiss, to the Rosenbergs, to the San
Francisco 49ers quarterback now being shouted down for his refusals with respect to the US national
anthem). Snowden’s actions, in many minds, constitute treason. I’m quite certain that most of the
following of Donald Trump, for example, would want him in prison for life at best and hanged at worst.

After listening to Snowden on tape and video multiple times, I believe him to be a highly courageous
and extremely ethical young man. He just might be the type who could weather such a storm and lead
an otherwise productive life, like Daniel Ellsberg has for example. That might make him a martyr to
some; but he will remain a villain to many others.

Am I for pardoning him? I would have to know a great deal more about the real impacts of his
revelations – not the lies the government tells – before I could formulate my view. None of this truth
is about to be forthcoming, so I really cannot make an informed judgment. It’s shameful because I
don’t think any reasonable citizen can.

Karen Greenberg

Director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University

What if there hadn’t been a Snowden? A program that violated the principles that this country holds
dear may have continued to this day. A program that an appellate court in New York found illegal,
that was so egregious in terms of law and civil liberties, may have continued or even been expanded.

Edward Snowden was immensely important and will only become more important as time goes on. Not
only did he show the American public what was being done in their name and to them, he ended a
program which, upon examination, national security and legal experts concluded did not work.

When considering whether or not he deserves to be pardoned, the president should remember that
even former attorney general Eric Holder said that Snowden performed a public service. His
revelations were the tidal wave the nation needed to change its ways. The importance of what he did
for the country outweighs the law that he violated and the just move is a pardon for Edward
Snowden.

Ed Pilkington, theguardian.com, September 14, 2014.