NSA Leaker Edward Snowden in the Running for European Human Rights Prize

NSA leaker Edward Snowden has been nominated for the Sakharov Prize, an award for contributions to human rights, the Washington Examiner reports. Snowden is apparently a favorite among the left-leaning Greens Party in the EU parliament, who nominated him for the “prestigious” award, saying that he has done an “enormous service” by leaking information regarding the NSA surveillance program.

"Edward Snowden has risked his freedom to help us protect ours and he deserves to be honored for shedding light on the systematic infringements of civil liberties by U.S. and European secret services," said Rebecca Harms and Dany Cohn-Bendit, leaders of the Greens.
Other nominees for the prize include Malala Yousufzai, the teenage Pakistani school girl who was shot by the Taliban on her way to class for promoting the education of young women, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former Russian oil tycoon who criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and was subsequently targeted for a host of supposed crimes.

Snowden was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in July by a Swedish sociology professor. Heritage’s director of foreign policy, Steven Bucci, rightly called the nomination “absurd” and questioned how being a thief and betrayer of trust really contributes to peace.