Actually, Sanders is pro-Snowden. Sanders has said that he will bring back Snowden and will make sure that a reasonable settlement is reached wrt. copying data and public benefit.

Edit: "In my view," Sanders continued, "the interests of justice would be best served if our government granted him some form of clemency or a plea agreement that would spare him a long prison sentence or permanent exile from the country whose freedoms he cared enough about to risk his own freedom." (added the actual comment)

I don't think this position qualify as pro-Snowden. The trial facing by Snowden is for "treason", which is by definition false because no third party government was involved.

I think it's pretty binary debate. It's not 5 years jail time vs. life sentence like Sanders seems to imply.

The US will not seek the death penalty for Snowden. [1] So functionally what Sanders is describing is the same.

[1] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LzcZPxv...

Any presidential candidate interested in doing so knows that the first step to pardoning Snowden is to get elected. Pledging to do so now is a pretty sure way to fail at that.

Which, I guess, says everything about the level of systemic corruption that we as a society have reached.