Edward Snowden said at a Wednesday event called to demand a pardon for the exiled mass surveillance whistleblower that he “never will” ask for one himself.

Snowden, to be clear, would like a presidential pardon, telling the Guardian this week that an end to focus on his showdown with U.S. authorities would be “the greatest gift anyone could give me.”

The whistleblower likened his decision not to personally request clemency to his 2013 decision to give journalists classified documents for review prior to publication.

“I don’t like to place myself in a position of decisional authority for our system,” Snowden said via video feed at the pardon-push gathering organized by the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

“I could have got it wrong, I could have been a crazy person, and this is why I gave all the documents I had available to journalists and their institutions to make an independent editorial assessment of whether or not the publication of any of these materials was in the public interest,” he said, repeating a contrast already drawn with the primary-source-publishing site WikiLeaks.

“I don’t feel it’s up to me to decide the direction of the future of our society,” he added. “I believe that’s a participatory, multilateral decision and we should intentionally try to remove the outside influence of a particular individual, and that includes myself. And that’s why I do not myself ask for a pardon and I never will.”

Snowden nonetheless appreciates others asking for him, appearing to become emotional at one point in the event. He noted the Pulitzer Prize was awarded to journalists who reported on the documents and that there is no evidence anyone was harmed by his actions. Other speakers at the press conference noted favorable court rulings and surveillance reform that passed in Congress as a result of disclosures about widespread government monitoring of citizens.

If the former National Security Agency contractor returns to the U.S. without a pardon or plea deal, his supporters say, he would face decades in prison for performing a public service. He is currently charged with stealing documents and with two violations of the Espionage Act.

Snowden and his attorneys have repeatedly argued he would not get a fair trial on the Espionage Act charges, as he would not be allowed to explain in court why he distributed classified government documents.

Snowden is living in exile in Russia, where he was stranded when the State Department canceled his passport while he was traveling from Hong Kong to Latin America.

The whistleblower’s comment on not asking for a pardon came in response to a Reuters journalist who asked if his decision not to ask for a pardon himself indicated he felt ambivalent about whether he deserved one.

Much of the press conference sounded familiar, casting Snowden's actions as bravely reshaping global privacy and cybersecurity consciousness.

Advocates for a pardon have set up a website, pardonsnowden.org, that has a ticking clock for the moments left until Barack Obama’s presidency expires in January.

Though Obama at first defended programs exposed by Snowden, including the mass collection of domestic U.S. phone records, he later pivoted toward embracing limited reforms and increased transparency for intelligence agencies. Obama signed the bulk collection-curbing USA Freedom Act last year, after mixed court rulings on the legality of the phone record program, the easiest to understand program exposed by Snowden.

More surveillance reforms have stalled in Congress and courtrooms, particularly efforts to end “backdoor surveillance” of domestic internet records or to force reconsideration of online spy programs that include the direct interception of data from the cables and switches that make up the internet’s background.

Another bout of reforms may come next year, when Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expires – though now privacy advocates have been put on the defensive, arguing against expansion in FBI National Security Letter authority.

There's some concern that any U.S. legal reform theoretically could be circumvented by interception of records outside U.S. borders under Executive Order 12333.

One of the speakers at the Wednesday event, which comes as director Oliver Stone promotes his new film “Snowden,” tried to offer a big-picture take on why he should get a pass.

“This man changed the world from Pakistan to Kenya to Mexico,” said Naureen Shah, director of the Security and Human Rights program at the U.S. section of Amnesty International.