German hacker club offers Snowden, Manning honorary membership

BERLIN – A German hacking group says it is offering honorary membership to NSA leaker Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, a U.S. soldier convicted of providing classified documents to WikiLeaks.

The Chaos Computer Club says its members voted overwhelmingly in favor of the move late Sunday.

Spokeswoman Constanze Kurz said Monday that members of the group, which describes itself as "Europe's largest association of hackers," also pledged to financially support Snowden's efforts to avoid extradition to the United States.

Snowden, who is currently in Russia, has been charged with espionage and other offenses in the U.S. and could get 30 years in prison if convicted.

Manning is serving a 35-year prison sentence for giving anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks more than 700,000 secret military and U.S. State Department documents.

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Chaos Computer Club: http://www.ccc.de/en/