Hillary Clinton might desire the arrest of Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, for leaking classified information about the government’s surveillance activities, but presumptive Green Party nominee Jill Stein has vowed to honor the activist many refer to as a ‘true American hero’ if she’s elected as president.
During a recent town hall event that was live-streamed to supporters on Facebook, she said:
“[Snowden] has done an incredible service to our country at great cost to himself for having to live away from his family, his friends, his job, his network, to basically live as an expatriate.”
If she is elected, Edward Snowden won’t be the only individual to be pardoned. CIA whistleblower John Kirkiakou, who exposed the U.S. government’s employment of waterboarding and other torture tactics, would have his record cleansed and his honor renewed.
Chelsea Manning, who received a 35-year prison sentence for leaking important information on the Afghan War Diary and Iraq War Logs – which revealed U.S. helicopter airmen intentionally gunning down journalists – to WikiLeaks, would also be pardoned.
If Aaron Swartz, the co-founder of Reddit, were still alive, he would have been pardoned, as well. Swartz killed himself in 2013 after he leaked academic research to the public and was harassed with a 35-year sentence and $1 million in fines. Stein explained:
“[Swartz] was a proponent of free and liberated Internet and for sharing our resources on that internet, who was basically hounded into suicide by a very oppressive Department of Justice. So, he — in my mind — is another one of these heroes that we need to remember and be very thankful for.”
According to the Green Party nominee, those who have risked their lives and reputations to call out injustices in the world – and especially in the government – “have done a great service.” They are the
“people who’ve paid an incredible price for our rights of not only the freedom to communicate on the Internet, but also the freedom to guard our privacy.”
Since Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton, a number of voters have shifted their support to Jill Stein, who has pledged to end wars, cut the U.S. military budget in half, stop police brutality, end mass incarceration, forego corporate trade agreements in favor of fair trade, label genetically modified food, and much, much more.
In fact, within 24 hours of Sanders joining with Clinton, Stein’s campaign received more than $80,000 in donations.
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