No, he exposed a federal crime being committed by the Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper.
He exposed how the Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper committed perjury (a federal crime in this instance) by lying to Congress and the American people about mass surveillance.
Is the counter argument that senior government officials should be allowed to lie to Congress about surveillance of American citizens?
And from wikipedia[1]: "Two U.S. representatives accused Clapper of perjury for telling a Congressional committee in March 2013, that the NSA does not collect any type of data at all on millions of Americans. One senator asked for his resignation, and a group of 26 senators complained about Clapper's responses under questioning. Media observers have described Clapper as having lied under oath, having obstructed justice, and having given false testimony."
Clapper changed his story a few times but eventually described this as something like "I forgot what we were talking about" but only after the perjury was exposed. Attorney General Eric Holder basically said he just forgot something and no charges necessary. One interpretation of this is as overt government corruption. It's relevant that Holder recently said he believes Snowden performed a public service.
Untrue. And, in fact, his revelations were instrumental in leading to at least one of the cases in which those things were found to be illegal.
Which is precisely why whether it was "legal", as defined by the NSA themselves, is irrelevant.
Yes, and he ignored that everyone qualified to determine the legality of the programmes he objected to determined that they were, in fact, legal.
> He did not ignore the legal process for raising his concerned- the legal process for raising his concerns FAILED
No, it succeeded. Nothing he revealed was in fact illegal or unconstitutional. Neither the law nor the Constitution mandates all good things, nor bans all bad things. 'I don't like it' is unsufficient proof of illegality.