That's what you're saying. Strawmaning is full-time profession in Snowden threads here. I've said consistently in my replies that the legal stuff is activities against foreign countries, within their operational mandate, and that Americans have accepted as morally right (or a necessary evil) for decades. Not unconstitutional stuff, not gross abuses, not anything like that. Just that they develop tools and capabilities to spy on foreign countries for America's interests. Aka, their job and one that's legally a state secret.

" Just because behavior is deemed legal, does not make it so."

It actually does. The whole concept of a legal system haha. However, I'm allowing for activism against abuses. It's why, as above, I'm talking about all the stuff he leaked that Americans were fine with and endorsed as legal. Even celebrated in "patriotic" films.

"Obviously the US government and the NSA believed that everything they were doing was on the up and up (and obviously this was not so.)"

Red herring important in other discussions about NSA's bullshiting legal team but not here. NSA's beliefs != the laws. Snowden, as a trained spy, knew it was legal for them to spy on foreign nations. That's what we're talking about.

"Do you think that Snowden should have hired an entire law firm"

Jesus. You're really grasping at straws and blowing up the hypotheticals. He claims to read each document at one point. No, all I expect is a simple question asked on each one: does it fall within their legal mandate or is it evidence of unconstitutional, deceptive activity against Americans in violation of the Constitution, their mandate and claims? That simple. Would've kept the leaks to just what America collectively would've had a problem with. Instead, the fool leaked all the legal stuff, too, giving right-wingers the excuse to dismiss him entirely as a traitor. Lots of lost votes for reform.

Also, leaking our foreign secrets to foreign media and trusting them to act in our interests... wtf. You don't need to be a lawyer to know that was treason.