Clemency Not An Option For Whistleblower Snowden

Clemency will not be granted to whistle-blower Edward Snowden any time soon — if ever.

That is, if the White House and the congressional intelligence committees have anything to do with the decision.

White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer said on Sunday, “Mr. Snowden violated U.S. law.”

When pressed further about whether clemency was being discussed he added, “He should return to the U.S. and face justice.”

Snowden’s plea for clemency was made in a letter given to a German politician and released Friday.In the letter he asks for clemency for charges over allegedly leaking classified information about the NSA to the news media. ”Speaking the truth is not a crime,” Snowden wrote.

Snowden’s revelations have led to calls by allies to cease such spying. Congress has been forced to overhaul U.S. surveillance laws and curb the agency’s powers.

The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee said ithat Snowden could have reported his concerns to her committee privately.

“That didn’t happen, and now he’s done this enormous disservice to our country,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “I think the answer is no clemency.”

Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee called the idea of clemency for Snowden “terrible.” He added, “He needs to come back and own up. If he believes there’s vulnerabilities in the systems he’d like to disclose, you don’t do it by committing a crime that actually puts soldiers’ lives at risk in places like Afghanistan.”

Feinstein said she didn’t know whether the president knew Merkel’s personal phone was being tapped, but said she intended to conduct a review of all intelligence programs to see if they were going too far. “Where allies are close, tapping private phones of theirs… has much more political liability than probably intelligence viability,” she said.

Former NSA and CIA director Mike Hayden said it was possible Obama did not know about the alleged Merkel phone tapping.

But he thought that it was “impossible” that Obama’s top staffers didn’t know. “The fact that they didn’t rush in to tell the president this was going on points out what I think is a fundamental fact: This wasn’t exceptional. This is what we were expected to do.”

So, the fallout from Edward Snowden’s revelations continues. Clemency is not a word that will figure on the White House agenda any time soon.

Perhaps Snowden should have studied more closely the dictionary definition of clemency:

“Clemency is a disposition to show mercy, especially toward an offender or enemy. and is a merciful, kind, or lenient act.”

It doesn’t appear that the Administration is in a kind or merciful mood at present.

Image: The Guardian