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Should the United States government offer NSA leaker Edward Snowden some degree of clemency so he does not have to spend the rest of his life in exile, forever looking over his shoulder?

鈥淵es," says The New York Times editorial board, in perhaps the most high-profile defense yet of the famous fugitive.听On Jan. 1, the Times published an editorial that argues that the information revealed by Mr. Snowden has had 鈥渆normous value鈥� and launched a nationwide debate on government surveillance.

Snowden couldn鈥檛 just go to his superiors and work through channels to reveal NSA abuses, claims the Times, because legal protections for whistle-blower activities don鈥檛 apply to government contractors such as him. Meanwhile, there鈥檚 no proof his leaks have actually damaged US security, according to the paper鈥檚 editorial board.

鈥淲hen someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government,鈥� writes the Times.

The British paper The Guardian has published an editorial with a similar point. This New Year鈥檚 push for mercy is likely to drive official Washington鈥檚 arguments over Snowden and his legacy, already heated, to new levels.

For instance, Business Insider political editor Josh Barro immediately fired back at the NYT鈥檚 logic, tweeting that it would be "terrible" to give Snowden a break along the lines laid out in the editorial, because to do would establish a dangerous precedent:

But the Atlantic鈥檚 Conor Friedersdorf, a longtime critic of the Obama administration鈥檚 surveillance and drone policies, fired right back at Mr. Barro, saying that pardons by definition deal with legal cases to which normal rules don鈥檛 seem to apply.

鈥淭hey are meant to be used judiciously, on an ad hoc basis, in what are clearly exceptional circumstances,鈥� Mr. Friedersdorf writes.

That鈥檚 just a taste of what security wonks will be tussling over. Of course we鈥檝e got a couple of comments here ourselves.

First, any sort of negotiated deal with Snowden won鈥檛 happen quickly. That鈥檚 because, as a practical matter, it would probably have to wait until legal challenges to the NSA鈥檚 newly revealed activities have played out in the courts. The resultant legal framework could have a powerful effect on the inherently political nature of any Snowden clemency, after all. If the NSA鈥檚 phone metadata collections are held to be unconstitutional, his chances of a return to the US might rise. If not, it might be hard for any president to offer Snowden a deal he鈥檇 find acceptable.

Second (and related), your position on Snowden today likely depends on your snap judgment as to how history will judge the activities he revealed.

To the Times, and other clemency advocates such as the ACLU, he has laid bare widespread illegality and abuse. The NSA鈥檚 own internal auditor has judged that the agency exceeded its authority 鈥渢housands of times a year," writes the Times. The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has rebuked the NSA for repeatedly providing misleading information about its surveillance activities.

鈥淢any of the mass-collection programs Mr. Snowden exposed would work just as well if they were reduced in scope and brought under strict outside oversight, as [a recent] presidential panel recommended,鈥� writes the Times editorial board.

Not everybody agrees with this judgment. Much of the coverage of Snowden leaks has exaggerated their reach, goes this view, while minimizing the effect of privacy safeguards that are already in place.

Washington Post opinion writer听Ruth Marcus writes that her scale weighs against Snowden, for instance.

鈥淓xisting oversight, while flawed, is not as feckless as Snowden portrays it, and the degree of intrusion on Americans鈥� privacy, while troubling, is not nearly as menacing as he sees it,鈥� Ms. Marcus writes.

Finally, can we leave Snowden鈥檚 personality out of this? Marcus judges that he鈥檚 got an overblown sense of self and of the importance of his actions, and that鈥檚 a perfectly legitimate opinion to have, but should it bear on his clemency outcome?

Whistle-blowers are often difficult. So are politicians. It takes a pretty big ego to step into the public arena to take on big issues, for good or ill. By going public with his identity, Snowden ensured that a good share of the coverage of his actions would focus on himself. But maybe it鈥檚 the NSA and what it does, not Snowden, that鈥檚 most important to the nation.

While it may be easy to "despise and reject Snowden," it is "much harder to despite and reject the discussion he touched off,"听writes New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen on his "Pressthink" blog.