They said that Snowden caused a shift in the public debate not that nobody listened to them beforehand (you should know they were raising concerns going back to 2002).
Baltimore Sun was reporting on Drake in 2006. Binney was publicly talking about it to Wired News and Democracy Now in 2012. Snowden happened in 2013.
So that makes my point even plainer than it possibly could have been made. The people who did the right thing by your definition got nothing done (and this was what caused Snowden to do it the way he did) and since Snowden, those previous cases were taken seriously by the government
Snowden did it completely wrong and you can’t convince me otherwise. I don’t see this conversation going further as you move the goalposts.
I'm not sure what your angle is, but the NSA proved that they were beyond contempt when they lied to the Senate and there were people in the room that knew the situation who didn't pull them up on it.
Regarding Binney specifically; the IG's report largely supported his claims, but it was classified and changed little. Thomas Drake, a serving NSA official who raised similar concerns internally, also got nowhere.
The government's serious attention came only after the New York Times revealed warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, and it came as a leak investigation. In 2007 the FBI raided the homes of Binney, Wiebe, Loomis and Roark; Binney has said agents drew guns on him while he was in the shower.
Drake was indicted under the Espionage Act in 2010. The case collapsed in 2011, he pleaded guilty to a minor misdemeanour, and the judge sharply criticised the prosecution's conduct. So the substance of Binney's warnings was mostly ignored or denied.
Binney went fully public around 2012, and NSA officials publicly denied that they kept files on ordinary Americans.
The core contrast is that Binney went through proper channels, took no documents and was not believed. He was investigated anyway and achieved almost no reform. Snowden bypassed every channel, took vast amounts of classified material and was pursued far more aggressively, but he forced a public debate and concrete legal changes.
You can pretend that's not true, but you'd be ignoring reality.
Thanks!
I don’t trust civil servants to not abuse access into everyones communications, the damage a stalker or pedophile can do is immeasurable, and we have some statements that was happening.