Obama refuses to be drawn on idea of Snowden amnesty

President Barack Obama refused to weigh in on whether fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden should receive amnesty despite his revealing the vast scope of US digital spy sweeps.
Obama, addressing reporters at a year-end White House press conference yesterday, said he welcomed a debate about the role of the National Security Agency, as he weighs possible changes to its broad powers.
But he also lamented that revelations made by Snowden, who is facing espionage charges at home and has been granted temporary asylum in Russia, had done "unnecessary damage" to the United States.
"I've got to be careful here... Because Mr. Snowden is under indictment. He's been charged with crimes, and that's the province of the attorney general and ultimately a judge and a jury. So, I can't weigh in specifically on this case at this point," Obama said.

An NSA official who headed the task force investigating the damage from the Snowden leaks, Rick Ledgett, told CBS television's "60 Minutes" earlier this month that he would be open to a deal for Snowden.
"My personal view is, yes, it's worth having a conversation about," Ledgett told the news magazine program.

But NSA chief General Keith Alexander rejected the idea of any amnesty for the 30-year-old, saying it would set a dangerous precedent for future leakers.
Tens of thousands of documents leaked by Snowden, Time magazine's runner-up behind Pope Francis for its person of the year, to The Guardian newspaper and other media outlets have detailed the nature of the NSA's hitherto shadowy activities.

The president, who said he would make a "pretty definitive statement" in January about how the NSA should be overhauled, repeated several times that the debate sparked by Snowden was necessary.
He emphasized the need to reach the proper counter-balance between national security and privacy concerns, which increased after Snowden revealed the NSA's mass storage of domestic phone records.
"I have confidence in the fact that the NSA is not engaging in domestic surveillance or snooping around, but I also recognise that... We may have to refine this further to give people more confidence. And I'm going to be working very hard on doing that," he said.

"And we've got to provide more confidence to the international community.