Yesterday, New York Times published editorial Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower providing numerous arguments why President Obama should pardon Edward Snowden for blowing whistle on NSA. MSNBC Adam Serwer echoed in his post today The Snowden Obama Amnesty Double Standard. However, both of these worth reading articles arguing whether Snowden committed a crime and should be punished or whether he fulfilled his patriotic duty, deserved clemency and should be pardon by the President miss one important point -- justice is equal for all as all Americans and the government officials Pledge to the flag and the Nation promising to defend the Constitution. That means if Snowden should be tried and punished for his expose of the illegal actions of NSA officials so the NSA officials who violated court orders, laws and Constitution should also be punished and prosecuted to the fullest extend of the Law as well. Yet, that presents a conundrum -- if the NSA officials broke the law, which most likely they did, then their actions were illegal and they cannot be declared "secret", thus, Snowden did not violate any laws uncovering these violations! The first issue that should be decided -- whether NSA officials broke the law and the President should make this his first priority, instead of prosecuting Edward Snowden. Snowden, did not "dump" irresponsibly secret documents on the web and did not give them to our enemies. He provided these documents (many of which, with countless additional others were shortly declassified by NSA and the other government officials) to the leading responsible news media organizations that disclosed them in very responsible and limited order. In fact, this is not the first time NSA was caught in violating the Law and FISA Court's orders. How come, then this facts are overlooked and how can we seriously debate that if Snowden did something differently NSA would admit wrongdoing and act to correct it? NSA officials broke the laws before Edward Snowden exposed them and if that is the case they cannot hide behind the curtain of secrecy. On several occasions President Obama acknowledged that he was not aware of some of the NSA actions such as, for example, wiretapping Angela Merkel's cell phone. So far no one at NSA was even reprimanded for any of the violations and illegal actions. Why should then Snowden who exposed these violations should be punished?
The Article II section 3 of the Constitution states that the President
shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed
Punishing Edward Snowden and letting NSA officials getting away with breaking the Law and violating Court's orders does not look like or is Justice.