Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey joined a growing chorus of celebrities calling for a presidential pardon for whistle-blower Edward Snowden Friday. This makes Dorsey the first CEO of a publicly listed tech company to openly support the campaign.
#PardonSnowden https://t.co/BMYp9MW1Oj
— jack (@jack) September 16, 2016
Earlier this week, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union launched a joint campaign and public petition to urge President Obama to pardon Snowden and allow him to return to the United States without the fear of persecution.
The campaign is being supported by a number of politicians and celebrities, including Senator Bernie Sanders, Susan Sarandon, Daniel Radcliffe, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Terry Gilliam, Noam Chomsky, Senator Ron Wyden as well as former NSA director Michael Hayden.
It coincides with the release of Oliver Stone’s “Snowden” movie. The movie is largely based on Snowden’s own story, who worked as a NSA contractor until defecting in 2013. Snowden initially took refuge in Hong Kong, then fled to Russia, and worked with journalists at newspapers like Washington Post, the New York Times and the Guardian to reveal details about the NSA’s surveillance programs against U.S. citizens.
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Federal prosecutors have filed espionage charges against Snowden, and a House intelligence committee this week accused him of having caused “tremendous damage” with his revelations.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the star of “Snowden,” had a very different take during the movie’s premiere in New York this week. “What he did was a really positive thing for the country,” he said. “I would consider it an honor to tell his story.”
