Edward Snowden's advocate Jesselyn Radack on Saturday said she seriously belives the National Security Advisor whistleblower Edward Snowden will return to the United States one day.

Stating that "those who sacrifice liberty to secure security deserve neither," she said, "I hope people around the world support the whistleblowers, listen to them rather than shoot the messenger."

Jesselyn Radack with Supreme Court lawyer Harish Salve Jesselyn Radack with Supreme Court lawyer Harish Salve

"Eventually, Edward Snowden will be able to return once good sense prevails. However, I don't see that in the next five to 10 years," Radack, the Director of Security and Human Rights, Government Accountability, US, said at the 13th India Today Conclave in New Delhi.

"Edward Snowden is winning awards all over the world, while the US is calling him the worst of the bad," Radack said.

"I myself am a whistleblower. I don't know if there is any Hindi word for that. Whistleblower is someone who reveals abuse, illegality, corruption, something that society, business and government doesn't want, but the opposite is true," she said at the session 'The Limits of Liberty - The Thin Line between National Interest and Individual Rights'.

In the Indian context, a whistleblower is a misnomer, said senior Supreme Court lawyer Harish Salve. "When we talk about whistleblowers, the situation is worse in India," he said.

Asked if India needs an Edward Snowden-like figure, Salve said, "It's just that we don't want to talk about it. The government romanticises the problem, creates fear and then tries to assume more and more power." He added, "I don't say there is no fear about terrorism."

"In India, political corruption is rampant," Salve said, adding, "You can make as many laws as possible to protect the whistleblowers. But unless you implement radical police reform and change the judicial system, they have no hope in India," Salve maintained.

Radack said she "decided to represent the whistleblowers" when she learnt they were indicted and prosecuted in the US.

Speaking of individual rights, Salve gave more prominence to public interest than national interest. "Preventive detention, Emergency and draconian provisions are bogus. Rampant wire-tapping, snooping, you name it and everything is being done in the name of national interest. We need to find the balance between the two," said the senior lawyer.

"I don't like the word national interest, which is born out of the writing of Niccolo Machiavelli. I prefer the word public interest. Credit goes to the wisdom of the founding fathers having drawn the lines between what are our inalienable rights and what are government rights," he said.

"If democracy has suffered, it's because the institutions have failed us. Institutional checks and balances have failed us," he said, adding, "We have to remind ourselves where our institutions have gone wrong. Corruption is a big problem today. We are faced with political corruption and division of the country on religious and caste lines. We find all forms of corruption glorified in the name of national interests. We need to ask what kind of society we want," Salve said.

Salve said, "Someone eavesdrops as we sleep, midnight raids, you are thrown into jails. Is that the kind of society we are talking about?"

Asking "how many policemen were sent to jail and how many government officials were taken to task", Salve said, "Even after 26/11, nothing has changed. But the US has far greater measures despite greater lapses than us, " Salve said.