I can see how it would be easy to read my post as a judgement as to whether the Snowden leaks were worth it, but I wasn't trying to make that point. If I was to rephrase my original comment using your analogy, I would say it something like this.

"The doctor who used chemotherapy to remove the cancer in America's body has caused spillover damage to other organ systems, but this course of action was only necessary because recommendations in the early stage of the disease to remove the tumor before it spread were ignored. When we ignore the warning signs early on it forces subsequent treatments to be far more indiscriminate"

Hopefully that clarifies