Campaign launched for Snowdens pardon

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union launched a campaign Wednesday to push President Barack Obama to pardon Edward Snowden, the fugitive intelligence whistleblower living in Russia.

High-profile lawyers and celebrities including writer Joyce Carol Oates and actor Martin Sheen have already signed the campaign's main prod, a petition at pardonsnowden.org that urges Obama to grant Snowden clemency before the president leaves office in January.

But the White House quickly said it had no intention of pardoning Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency who released thousands of classified documents in 2013 revealing the vast US surveillance put in place after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest disputed that Snowden was a whistleblower and said he would enjoy legal due process at a trial in the United States, where he faces up to 30 years in prison for espionage and theft of state secrets.

"His conduct put American lives at risk and it risked American national security," Earnest told reporters.

In July, the White House rejected an earlier petition to pardon Snowden that had garnered more than 160,000 signatures.

The 33-year-old fled with documents to Hong Kong, where he hid among Sri Lankan refugees in cramped tenements, and later received political asylum in Russia after the United States revoked his passport while he was en route to Ecuador.

Bernie Sanders, who ran a leftist campaign for the Democratic Party nomination to succeed Obama, offered his support, writing on Twitter: "The interests of justice would be best served if our government granted Snowden some form of clemency."

Snowden and his supporters argue that although he stole information, the revelations have benefited the public because they led to improved privacy protection laws.

The rights groups launched the campaign on the heels of a release of a biopic thriller, "Snowden," by anti-establishment director Oliver Stone.