Calls for Pardoning Snowden Grow After Court Rules NSA Surveillance Program Violated Law

By anaafrica On Sep 3, 2020

WASHINGTON, September 3- US Lawmakers and activists are calling for a pardon of whistleblower Edward Snowden after the government surveillance program that he exposed was ruled illegal by a federal court. On Wednesday, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said it concluded that the government violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act when…

WASHINGTON, September 3 (Sputnik) – US Lawmakers and activists are calling for a pardon of whistleblower Edward Snowden after the government surveillance program that he exposed was ruled illegal by a federal court.

On Wednesday, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said it concluded that the government violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (‘FISA’) when it collected the telephony metadata of millions of Americans.

“Edward @Snowden deserves a pardon from President @realDonaldTrump,” Congressman Matt Gaetz said in a tweet on Thursday.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald, who was involved with publishing some of the information leaked by Snowden, followed with a tweet of his own saying that pardoning Snowden “now has support across an unusually wide ideological spectrum.”

US Senator Rand Paul, Congressman Thomas Massie, the ACLU, Freedom of the Press, and EU parliamentarians are among those who support pardoning the whistleblower, Greenwald said.

Even though the ruling said the data collection program was illegal under the FISA law, the panel declined to rule on whether the effort violated the constitution because evidence from eavesdropping that prosecutors introduced in the trial did not affect the outcome, the ruling said.

Snowden, a former NSA contractor, released hundreds of thousands of classified documents prior to receiving asylum in Russia. In addition to exposing the US domestic surveillance program, Snowden’s documents also illustrated the size and scope of US spying on other nations, including routine eavesdropping on world leaders, as well as attempts to uncover terrorist plots.