According to the Reuters report, the US President said he was “going to start looking at” a possible pardon for the whistleblower, who has been living in asylum in Russia since he left his home country in 2013. The comments came after President Trump told The Post that “a lot of people” think that Snowden “is not being treated fairly. Edward Snowden has also been a vocal advocate of cryptocurrencies. Snowden was responsible for exposing NSA for its use of mass surveillance tools on common citizens.
The White House had considered pardoning Snowden in 2016.
Edward Snowden, in response to the Trump’s comments, tweeted that “the last time we heard a White House considering a pardon was 2016, when the very same Attorney General who once charged me conceded that, on balance, my work in exposing the NSA’s unconstitutional system of mass surveillance had been “a public service.” Edward Snowden still faces federal charges for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and theft of government property. Should the US president invoke this authority, it would make Snowden the 26th person Trump has pardoned since taking office in January 2017.
The last time we heard a White House considering a pardon was 2016, when the very same Attorney General who once charged me conceded that, on balance, my work in exposing the NSA's unconstitutional system of mass surveillance had been "a public service." https://t.co/fAseViVwAx
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) August 14, 2020
Edward Snowden continues to speak for online privacy and the use of crypto.
The former National Security Agency contractor has continued to express his opinions on Bitcoin, even voicing concerns over its blockchain as “devastatingly public,” from his exile. The servers Snowden used back in 2013 to leak thousands of documents to journalists were reportedly paid for using Bitcoin. As reported earlier, the whistleblower tweeted he “felt like buying Bitcoin” during the March downturn when the price of the coin dropped to $3,782. Earlier, Snowden had hinted he might turn to crypto to circumvent the US government’s attempt to restrict his access to profits from the publication of his book, Permanent Record. Snowden still continues to criticize the government over online privacy policies.
