Edward Snowden is still waiting to hear if he’ll get a presidential pardon.

He probably won’t get one after embarrassing President Barack Obama with revelations of massive U.S. government surveillance programs, but 100,000 of the exiled whistle-blower’s fans nonetheless earned the proposal an official White House response on June 24, 2013.

They did so by signing a whitehouse.gov petition that quickly cleared the six-figure threshold for feedback.

“Edward Snowden is a national hero and should be immediately issued … a full, free, and absolute pardon,” the petition said.

A full year later, petitioners have received no response.

Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House’s National Security Council, says the petition will – eventually – receive official comment.

“No change to my answer,” Hayden tells U.S. News, referring to earlier confirmations that White House staff will respond to the petition, rather than invoke an exception.

“Yes, we'll be responding,” Hayden said in a November email, following an August explanation that “[r]esponse times vary.”

Snowden faces three felony charges for allegedly stealing government documents and violating the Espionage Act of 1917 by copying and distributing classified files that revealed the National Security Agency’s phone and Internet surveillance programs.

NSA Deputy Director Rick Ledgett said in March he would support discussions with Snowden, but the Obama administration’s position on a pardon seems clear.

“He should man up and come back to the United States,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in May.

“I don't think Mr. Snowden was a patriot,” Obama said in August.

Snowden is currently living in exile in Russia, where he was stranded en route to Latin America when the U.S. Department of State canceled his passport. The Russian government granted him political asylum in August.

Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union represents Snowden in negotiations with the U.S. government. He’s open to deals that do not include time behind bars.

“We don’t have comment on the petition,” Wizner says, adding “there's no update at the moment” to report about negotiations that might result in his client's return to the U.S.



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The White House launched its petition forum – called “We the People” – in 2011 to facilitate the involvement of ordinary citizens in policy-making. Critics call it a propaganda tool.

“At the trivial level this petition site is just a gimmick,” Jeff Jarvis, a professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism, told U.S. News in March. “At the more serious level, the White House with or without the petition has to grapple with the value Edward Snowden brought to the debate and it has to grapple with true protection of whistle-blowers.”