Edward Snowden gets NO MERCY

If Edward J. Snowden believes he deserves clemency for his disclosures of classified government documents because they provoked an important public debate about the reach of US spying, he has failed to sway the White House and at least two key members of Congress. 

The chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and her House counterpart, Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan, gave sharply negative answers Sunday when asked whether they believed Snowden had made a case for clemency.

“He was trusted; he stripped our system. He had an opportunity — if what he was a whistle-blower — to pick up the phone and call the House intelligence committee, the Senate intelligence committee, and say I have some information,” Feinstein said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “That didn’t happen.” 

“He’s done this enormous disservice to our country,” she added, “and I think the answer is no clemency.” 

Rogers was equally adamant. 

“No, I don’t see any reason” to grant clemency, he said on the same program. “I wouldn’t do that. He needs to come back and own up. We can have those conversations, if he believes there are vulnerabilities he’d like to disclose.”

[...] 

Snowden’s argument — made in a “Manifesto for the Truth” published Sunday by the German news magazine Der Spiegel and in a letter to US officials — was that he has started a useful debate about whether US spies are overreaching with the help of enormously powerful technology and should be reined in. 

Federal prosecutors have charged Snowden with theft and with two violations of the Espionage Act of 1917. But Snowden, who has taken refuge in Russia, has denied any treasonous intent, saying he disclosed secrets to the news media, not to hostile foreign powers, and did so to push for reform.

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