RFK Jr. says he would pardon whistleblower Edward Snowden

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he would pardon whistleblower Edward Snowden on his first day in office if he’s elected president in November, and is encouraging people to sign a petition to “intensify the spotlight” on Mr. Snowden’s case.

“Edward Snowden performed a critical public service by revealing to Americans for the first time that our government had been spying on millions of us, of law-abiding American citizens in violation of numerous laws and of our fundamental right to privacy,” Mr. Kennedy said in a video posted on his website Monday.

Mr. Snowden is a former National Security Agency contractor who exposed the NSA’s surveillance operations. He fled the U.S. in 2013 to avoid espionage charges. He currently lives in Russia to avoid the charges.

Mr. Kennedy called Mr. Snowden “an American hero.” He said he would build a statue of Mr. Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who also faces espionage charges, near the Washington Press Club or outside the CIA headquarters.

“His brave actions led Congress to restrict the surveillance authority of the intelligence community for the first time in forty years,” Mr. Kennedy said on his website.

“The America I love doesn’t punish whistleblowers. Truth tellers who champion free speech and try to return America to its democratic and humanitarian ideals should be revered, not prosecuted,” he said.

The opinions are mixed on what Mr. Snowden did. Some say he’s a traitor, while others celebrate his actions. He has said he leaked the information because he wanted to inform the public about what the government was doing to them.

The petition set up by Mr. Kennedy calls for 300,000 signatures so that Mr. Snowden can come back to the U.S. “unfettered.”

“This isn’t the Soviet Union. The America I love doesn’t imprison dissidents. Our founders put free speech as the First Amendment because all our other rights depend on it. If you give a government license to silence its critics, it now has license for any atrocity,” he wrote in the petition’s release.