When the head of the organisation commits federal crimes without reproach(he was not prosecuted after the details were revealed), who are you supposed to report to except the public?
But he had already been taking documents by the time Clapper got in front of Congress according to the unclassified house intelligence report on Snowden.
The intelligence services have a difficult task, they need to be on top of their game so they need to know everything and try to prevent problems snowballing unless its not particularly harmful and could be quite educational for future improvement. You have a blank sheet of paper, what would you do to maintain or reduce harm to society?
I say this as someone who has met Andrew Parker, Stella Rimmington and Jonathon Evans and is wise to their ways but not someone who has signed the official secrets but has arguably an "autistic" interest in secrecy and quantifying all walks of life.
That's not how modern democratic society can and should work though
A) Please don't use autism as a slur, and
B) Please don't imply that if someone cares about privacy, it's because their brain works differently. Hold yourself to a higher standard of argument.