Edward Snowden has a suggestion for President Obama: “pardon me.” The Presidential Pardon is a prerogative that can be exercised at any time, but is especially favored by Oval Office holders in the last days of their Administration. It is an extraordinarily powerful executive privilege: their is no judicial review, no Congressional oversight, no possibility of revocation; and the Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy prohibition ensures that the offender starts with a clean sheet. The pardon was famously (or infamously) granted to disgraced President Richard Nixon just weeks after his Vice President Gerald Ford took office; President George HW Bush controversially pardoned Casper Weinberger in 1992 to end a Congressional investigation into Iran-Contra that might have finally disgraced himself and former President Ronald Reagan.

Edward Snowden was a Booz Allen Hamilton contractor for the National Security Agency, working as a systems administrator on project PRISM, a surveillance program that collects and filters electronic communications data for warning signs of possible terrorist intentions. In 2013, he told his employers he was going on vacation; in fact, he flew to Hong Kong, where he handed over massive amounts of classified material to Western journalists. When articles began appearing in the Washington Post and the  Guardian, the Justice Department filed charges of theft of government property and violations of the Espionage Act. Snowden fled to Moscow just ahead of a US extradition request to China, and he has been in hiding in Russia for the past three years.

Mr. Snowden acknowledges that he broke the law; but he argues that he did so for “morally correct” reasons and to the benefit of the public. He points to the public outcry against mass surveillance programs in the wake of his disclosures and to the changes in US laws and policies, pointing out that these would not have occurred without his revelations. For the most part, he is right.

President Obama was forced to establish a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to review The most controversial of the programs. The President also ordered Federal intelligence agencies to put in place “appropriate safeguards” to protect the personal information of citizens caught in the data dragnet. Private industry has become much more reluctant to cooperate with Federal authorities against their customers’ privacy expectations. Records on foreign citizens could no longer be held indefinitely; if agencies found no evidence to merit a warrant, it would have to be deleted after 5 years, the same length of time as for American citizens. Angela Merkel can now rest easy.

In other, fundamental ways, the programs have not changed much. Mass data collection continues; use of the inscrutable FISA courts to issue warrants continues; the NSA can still designate data and persons to be suspicious and subject to retention with no public review or judicial process. Raison d’etat  still rules.

I have no objection to Mr. Snowden revealing classified information about a program that had gone far beyond the limits of accountability. But I do object to his fleeing first to China and then to Russia, our two greatest rivals.

You might say that these were the only countries he felt would resist US extradition pressure (which is not at all true, just look at Julian Assange). The Obama Administration has shown a grievous lack of judgement in its persecution of whistleblowers and retaliation against “unfriendly” journalists, and this undoubtedly shaped Mr. Snowden’s decision to flee; but his choice of destination is deplorable. Neither the Chinese nor the Russians are noted for their deep respect of civil rights, press freedom or whistleblowers: nor are they much more given than any other nation to doing things just because “they are morally right and benefit the public” – especially the US public. Like all other states – or more so – they act out of self-interest: I would be shocked if Snowden wasn’t wrung dry of information by Chinese and Russian intelligence as a quid pro quo of asylum.

Some would argue that Snowden had nothing more to give when he released his  files on PRISM and other mass surveillance programs, but that is assuming too much of US cyber security systems. We don’t know if Mr. Snowden had access, or gained access, to sensitive information from other programs: a bright young man about to go on the lamb from the Feds might be expected to attempt to secure additional insurance, just in case it were needed. Even without additional information on US programs, his detailed knowledge of the NSA’s system architecture could have proven extremely valuable to foreign intelligence agencies attempting to hack US systems – and the Russians and Chinese have certainly been doing plenty of that. It is important to know whether they had any help from Mr. Snowden.

I am perfectly willing to contemplate pardoning Edward Snowden for his release of PRISM material to the public. But he must first come home and cooperate with authorities fully; explain what additional information he conceded to win an additional 3 years of asylum in Russia. Until and unless he comes clean with what he gave up and how it might have damaged US interests, I think he remains more traitor than whistleblower.