Will Obama Pardon Snowden? Amnesty International Launches Campaign Lobbying For Presidential Pardon For NSA Whistleblower

Amnesty International Sweden, in collaboration with the advertising agency Garbergs, has launched a campaign allowing people to download a personal message from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in place of the “ordinary voice message” used for out-of-office replies.

Amnesty International believes the 33-year-old is a whistleblower and not a criminal. The non-governmental organization has called for President Barack Obama to pardon Snowden before leaving the Oval Office on Jan. 20, 2017.

“When human rights abuses occur, the public must learn about them to be able to react and hold those responsible to account. Whistleblowers play a critical role in upholding constitutional and human rights guarantees and should be celebrated, not punished. Edward Snowden must be pardoned, whistleblowers across the world must be protected, and indiscriminatory mass surveillance of personal data must stop as a matter of urgency,” Johanna Westeson, discrimination officer at Amnesty International Sweden, said in a statement published Tuesday.

Snowden, who has been living in exile in Moscow since 2013, is wanted in the U.S. under the Espionage Act for leaking classified information. The 33-year-old revealed that the NSA had been spying on Americans using the mass surveillance programs the U.S. had set up after 9/11.

Activists, organizations and civilians have been lobbying Obama to issue a presidential pardon for Snowden allowing him to return to the U.S. You can download the messages available on snowdenoutofoffice.com, where you can also sign a petition calling for the immediate pardon of the 33-year-old.

Obama’s successor Republican Donald Trump in 2013 called Snowden a “terrible traitor” and hinted that he should be killed.

The incoming Trump administration is stepping up its efforts to arrest Snowden but the whistleblower defended his actions saying: “I don’t care. The reality here is that yes, Donald Trump has appointed a new director of the Central Intelligence Agency who uses me as a specific example to say that, look, dissidents should be put to death... It doesn’t actually matter that much to me, because I believe in the decisions that I’ve already made.”