US court rules that surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal

[Tambourine]

Most of the risk were Iraq and Afghanistan civilians who were covertly passing information to the US.

Whom the US could have protected, had they wanted to.
But to the armed forces of the US the loss of foreign lives is always an acceptable sacrifice.

 

[Tambourine]

I would think a pardon is out of question, hadn't he ran and faced the system head on, a pardon might have been on the table.

I just ran across the story of Matt Diaz, a Navy judge who acted as a (failed) whistleblower in Guantanamo Bay, and I think it illustrates very well what usually happens in these cases:
The Weight of History | The Nib

Spoiler: excerpts:

 

[Valjean]

Never before has the government had so so much information about the people, and the people so little information about the government.