Watergate-era intelligence experts are urging President Barack Obama to allow National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden to return home and negotiate a settlement, saying he helped bring about reform and that his “untenable exile” in Russia benefits nobody.

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In a memo sent Tuesday, 15 staffers who worked on the 1970s congressional Church Committee that investigated activities by U.S. intelligence services wrote, “There is no question that Edward Snowden’s disclosures led to public awareness which stimulated reform. Whether or not these clear benefits to the country merit a pardon, they surely do counsel for leniency.”

Snowden’s 2013 revelations that the NSA was conducting mass surveillance against millions of Americans brought about what the signatories describe as a rare case of bipartisan government reform.

Even architects of the Patriot Act such as Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) supported the effort to scale back surveillance in the wake of the leaks, the memo states, noting that “he and his colleagues had not intended to permit the NSA’s widespread scooping up of data about Americans’ communications.”

Snowden’s documents also revealed the scope of the NSA’s overseas spying operations, which included “eavesdropping on close allies in addition to potential adversaries,” it continues. The revelations brought about “the first-ever reforms to afford privacy protection for foreigners from surveillance unless it is necessary to protect our national security.”

The Church Committee’s full title is the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. Between 1975-76, the panel disclosed now-infamous government operations such as COINTELPRO, which aimed to infiltrate and discredit progressive political organizations, as well as the FBI’s effort to push Martin Luther King, Jr. to commit suicide, among others. The Church Committee’s then-chief counsel, Frederick “Fritz” Schwarz, Jr., is now the chief counsel of the Brennan Center for Justice.

The memo notes that Obama and other members of his cabinet, including former Attorney General Eric Holder, have acknowledged Snowden’s impact, with the president saying that the public debate and accountability that came out of the revelations “will make us stronger.”

The letter continues:

“Some oppose leniency for Snowden because he violated the law,” the memo states. “But many in the national security establishment who committed serious crimes have received little or no punishment.”