Edward Snowden, America’s #1 fugitive, would not only get a full pardon under a Jill Stein administration, but would get a promotion to one of the highest levels of government.
“[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,” Stein said during a livestreamed town hall with supporters on her Facebook page.
“I would say not only bring Snowden back, but bring him into my administration as a member of the Cabinet, because we need people who are part of our national security administration who are really, very patriotic,” Stein continued. “If we’re really going to protect American security, we also have to protect our Constitutional rights, and that includes our right to privacy.”
In addition to pardoning Snowden, the presumptive Green Party presidential nominee has also said she would grant full pardons to government whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who leaked what became known as the Afghan War Diary and Iraq War Logs, including the infamous “Collateral Murder” video of US helicopters killing journalists in Iraq to WikiLeaks.
Stein would have also pardoned John Kiriakou, a former CIA analyst who was the first to leak confirmation of waterboarding torture to the media and served 30 months in prison. Stein also said she would have pardoned Aaron Swartz, the MIT student and Reddit cofounder who leaked academic research to the public. However, Swartz committed suicide in 2013 after being threatened with 35 years in federal prison and $1 million in fines for the MIT information leak.
“[Swartz] was a proponent of a 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,” Stein said. “So, he–in my mind–is another one of these heroes that we need to remember and be very thankful for.”
As US Uncut previously reported, Stein is becoming a fast favorite of many Bernie Sanders supporters after the Vermont senator’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Stein’s campaign accumulated over $80,000 in donations in a little over 24 hours following the Sanders-Clinton joint appearance in Portsmouth, NH, with over half of that money coming from first-time donors, and 615 donations of $27 — the signature donation amount to the Sanders campaign.
— source usuncut.com By Tom Cahill