He is a traitor. But I think we need a new intellectual category--and perhaps even a new legal one--to describe "a traitor who could not have been one had the government not been involved in a massive scheme to violate American liberties." I don't think he should be pardoned:
I believe he committed treason--and caused massive harm to legitimate government programs that served the legitimate function of protecting our national security. I believe, too, that he placed Russia's interests above ours.
But there needs to be some kind of category--in our minds and probably the law's--that matches the public's intuitions about this. We know that his form of treason is not like that of a man who sells out his country for money, or because he's been blackmailed,
or because he's an ideological opponent of America. This is something more complex, and I'm not sure what we should do about it. There are two crimes here, his treason and the illegal activity he exposed.
Something in our language and our laws--and our treatment of Snowden--should reflect that. A pardon isn't the right answer, but neither is pretending that his is a straightforward case.
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