No amnesty for Edward Snowden, White House insists

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/16/edward-snowden-no-amnesty-white-house

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The White House has dashed hopes that the administration might be considering an amnesty for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, insisting he should still return to the US to stand trial.

Despite mounting acknowledgement that Snowden has raised important matters of public interest through the leaks to the Guardian and other newspapers, a US government spokesman said its position remained unchanged.

“Mr Snowden has been accused of leaking classified information and he faces felony charges in the US. He should be returned to the United States as soon as possible, where he will be accorded full due process,” spokesman Jay Carney told reporters on Monday.

Asked about weekend comments by a senior NSA official suggesting that an amnesty was “worth talking about” if Snowden returned the missing NSA documents, Carney added: “Our position has not changed on that matter – at all. He was expressing he personal opinion; these decisions are made by the Department of Justice.”

The NSA official in charge of assessing the alleged damage caused by Snowden’s leaks, Richard Ledgett, told CBS News that an amnesty still remains controversial within the agency, which has spent the past six months defending itself against a global outcry and legislative and executive proposals to restrain its broad surveillance activities.

“My personal view is, yes, it’s worth having a conversation about,” Ledgett, who is under consideration to become the agency’s top civilian, said in an interview on CBS 60 Minutes on Sunday.

“I would need assurances that the remainder of the data could be secured, and my bar for those assurances would be very high. It would be more than just an assertion on his part.”

Snowden is in Russia, having been granted a year-long asylum that has sparked international intrigue.

In June, the Justice Department filed a criminal complaint charging the 30-year old former contractor with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and “wilful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person”, although he has not yet been indicted.

The White House poured cold water on the idea of an amnesty as it separately revealed an internal review of the NSA's activities had sent more than 40 recommendations for reform to the president.

Obama will also meet seven of the world's largest technology companies on Tuesday to hear their argument that Snowden's revelations showed the balance has tilted too far away from privacy and civil liberties.

The heads of Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, LinkedIn and Yahoo published an open letter last week calling for a ban on bulk collection of data, and will be among 15 technology executives visiting the White House on Tuesday to discuss “national security and the economic impacts of unauthorized intelligence disclosures” among other subjects.

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