WASHINGTON
The White House on Tuesday dismissed a petition signed by more than 150,000 people to pardon a former NSA contractor who leaked classified intelligence documents to the press.
In a response letter to the petition, Lisa Monaco, President Barack Obama’s Advisor on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, said that Edward Snowden should return to the U.S. to face the charges against him instead of hiding “behind the cover of an authoritarian regime”.
“Mr. Snowden's dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it,” Monaco wrote two years after the petition was posted. “He's running away from the consequences of his actions.”
Snowden is currently living in Russia where he has been granted asylum after disclosing thousands of documents to journalists that outlined secret U.S. mass surveillance programs, which spanned the Internet and phone networks.
Their outing prompted mass outrage both at home and abroad among everyday citizens and high-ranking officials, including close allies in Europe.
Monaco said that in disclosing the documents in the manner that he did, Snowden did not act “constructively”.
Earlier this month, former Attorney General Eric Holder said that a potential deal with Snowden could still be possible.
“We are in a different place as a result of the Snowden disclosures,” Holder said at the time. “His actions spurred a necessary debate.”
We the People petitions require 100,000 signatures to receive an official response from the White House.
