system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
The USA should drop the charges against Edward Snowden. CMV

The American government has charged Snowden with 3 charges: Theft of government property, and 2 charges under the 1917 Espionage Act.

While he did in fact break the law, I believe that the prosecution should drop the charges for a few main reasons:

1. Snowden was clearly acting in the public interest. Such was demonstrated by the blatant infringment of the 4th amendment of the constitution, infringment of privacy, coerced and non consensual data retrieval. The public, judicial and congressional uproar are evidence of this. Congressional committees were not even aware of some of the NSAs actions, and dozens of bills are in debate to limit the NSA powers.

2. Leaking was his last resort. Those who tried to blow the whistle through the appropriate channels simply failed. See: Thomas Drake, William Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe, and Ed Loomis

3. Charging Snowden will discourage future whistleblowers from exposing infringements and abuse of the system

4. The public opinion is vastly in favour of Snowdens actions, and these actions have done no harm to the public or to "national security". THe light on the issue has brought a benefit to the people, and an embarassment to the abusers of power.

CMV!

Edit: I awarded the delta on a very strong refutation to my second idea. I would love some more discussion though, this is a very interesting case.
gpt
Since when does the public opinion matter in terms of justice? That would be a terrible society to live in. If he broke the law (which he did) and potentially endangered people (which he did), he should be punished. He made the leaks knowing he was breaking the law. That comes with consequences. He will have to face them.