Not just freeing. Give the guy some kind of lofty award and have the next US president give it to him together with a speech explaining how great the things are that he did.
Actually, I don't think Snowden did that much. He exposed crimes, sure. But they still happen in darkness now. So there's this drifting time element to his story. It's in the past. And the systems that are in place for accountability didn't result in any accountability. Rather things just went dark.
Maybe have a ponder about, if Snowden didn't happen, what would be different about today?
Upside from Snowden, the intel community got better controls around administrator access on their networks.
The point of Snowden's actions was to reveal what our government is doing in an attempt to force them to change it. The immediate branding him as a traitor and foreign agent both allows the government to continue the illicit activity and discourages others from revealing damaging material.
By pardoning him and then rewarding him for his actions, it at least signals that government organizations shouldn't engage in similar activities and will lead to other people stepping forward if they do.
>it at least signals that government organizations shouldn't engage in similar activities.
This is the worst way for the executive to send signals to the organizations it controls.
It also assumes that the alphabet agencies were building these systems without government knowledge. But, everyone knew. They got the money for the project from the government. Sending a signal would be better achieved via legislation. Snowden should have leaked to members of congress.
I strongly doubt Snowden will ever get a pardon. It would be rewarding people declassifying large government programs based on their feelings about those programs.
So why would Clapper lie about it to Wyden? Additionally, what good would leaking it to Congress do then?
As a whole, I agree that the pardon alone would be a poor signal. Ideally it would be accompanied by additional changes. You argued that Snowden didn't accomplish much though and part of the reason is the hostile reaction from the government.
>It would be rewarding people declassifying large government programs based on their feelings about those programs
If a program is classified, it shouldn't be in a moral gray area. The public should be aware if we're committing unethical acts.
