NY Times, Guardian bat for Snowden clemency

Edward Snowden: Clemency. AP FILE PHOTO

LONDON—The New York Times and Guardian newspapers have called for clemency for Edward Snowden, saying the espionage worker-turned-privacy advocate should be praised rather than punished for his disclosures.

The papers—both of which have played a role in publishing Snowden’s intelligence trove—suggested late on Wednesday that the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor’s revelations about the United States’ world-spanning espionage program were of such public importance that they outweighed any possible wrongdoing.

“Considering the enormous value of the information he has revealed and the abuses he has exposed, Mr. Snowden deserves better than a life of permanent exile, fear and flight,” the Times said in an editorial, calling either for a plea bargain, some form of clemency or a “substantially reduced punishment.”

The Guardian said in its editorial that it hoped “calm heads within the present [US] administration are working on a strategy to allow Mr. Snowden to return to the United States with dignity, and the president to use his executive powers to treat him humanely and in a manner that would be a shining example about the value of whistle-blowers and of free speech itself.”

But the paper also said it was hard to envisage US President Barack Obama

giving the leaker “the pardon he deserves.”

Uncoordinated

Both newspapers published their editorials online within a few hours of one another but Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said the papers’ appeals weren’t coordinated ahead of time.

“Complete coincidence,” he said in an e-mail. He credited the legal reverses suffered by the NSA’s domestic dragnet, the spying reforms suggested by Obama’s privacy review team and the Silicon Valley companies’ recent summit at the White House with bringing things to a head.

“We both had the same thought—that, after the rather extraordinary events just before Christmas… it [would] be [good] to say something at year-end,” he said.

Snowden is currently residing in Russia following an abortive attempt to travel to Latin America where he’d been offered asylum.

He faces espionage charges in connection with his leaks, which US officials have described as damaging or even life-threatening, but talk of amnesty has been circulating for several weeks after the idea was first floated by senior NSA official Rick Leggett.

Amnesty talk

Asked about the proposal in his yearend press conference on Dec. 20, 2013, Obama didn’t explicitly rule it out and at least one former member of the intelligence community suggested the idea had some traction.

Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former chief of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, recently told the BBC she expected “some kind of deal” for Snowden—although she was careful to note that she was simply speculating.

US officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment on Thursday. Snowden’s Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, could not immediately be reached.

Drop prosecution bid

The Times’ editorial was quickly seized upon by activists campaigning to persuade the Obama administration to drop its bid to prosecute Snowden.

And it touched a nerve with Times readers. More than 1,200 left comments on the daily’s website within hours of the item going online and it soared to the top of its “most viewed” items of the day.

The Times, one of several newspapers around the world to have reported on US surveillance tactics based on secret files leaked by Snowden, has previously voiced support for the 30-year-old.

But editorial page editor Andrew Andrew Rosenthal said the explicit call for the administration to cut a deal with Snowden had come out just as US public and expert opinion began to swing behind him.

“It felt like there was a real critical mass,” Rosenthal told the Times’ public editor, Margaret Sullivan, one of many journalists who wrote follow-up columns on the mounting furor.

The Times’ case was that Snowden had done the United States a service by exposing the vast scope of secret digital surveillance.

Global dragnet

Reports based on Snowden’s leaked files have disclosed a global dragnet run by Washington and its allies in the English-speaking world, scooping up Internet traffic and telephone call logs.

This outraged many, including some US telecommunication users and foreign governments targeted in the indiscriminate sweeps, and it has touched off a political and legal debate in the United States.

While Snowden remains in Moscow, protected by temporary political asylum, US courts have begun examining the legality of the snooping and the White House has carried out an internal review.

One federal judge has already dubbed NSA snooping “almost Orwellian” and probably illegal, and Obama has promised his review would lead to some new limits on spy agency activity.

Legally speaking, however, Snowden still faces arrest and prosecution, and could see decades in jail for treason or espionage.

Great service

The Times opposes this, arguing that he launched a national debate.

“He may have committed a crime to do so, but he has done his country a great service,” the paper wrote.

The National Security Council declined to comment, referring Agence France-Presse to previous White House statements.

Obama had said he welcomed debate about the NSA’s role but had refused to discuss the possibility of amnesty or a presidential pardon for Snowden.

In mid-December, the White House renewed its demand for the fugitive leaker to return to face trial.

US federal prosecutors have filed a criminal complaint against Snowden, charging him with espionage and theft of government property. Some lawmakers have dubbed him a traitor.

Major rights watchdogs supported the Times’ call.

Human Rights Watch’s executive director, Kenneth Roth, tweeted: “Snowden exposed major misconduct. Others filing official complaints were ignored/prosecuted. He should be pardoned.”

The American Civil Liberties Union said it “couldn’t agree more” with the editorial.

Plea deal

The editorial also echoed remarks by Rick Ledgett, an NSA official who led a task force investigating damage from the leaks.

Last month, Ledgett became the first serving national security official to suggest publicly that Snowden could cut a deal to avoid prosecution if he stops exposing US secrets.

It is not clear how many more documents taken by Snowden have still to be disclosed. Journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has worked closely with him, says there are thousands more pages to come.

Some have said a plea deal for Snowden, like the one suggested by the Times, could allow US investigators to at least discover the size of the breach and identify compromised programs.