If the most famous U.S. government secret revealed by Edward Snowden had been the only one he divulged, deciding whether he deserves a pardon from President Barack Obama would be a tougher call.

Snowden famously disclosed in 2013 that the National Security Agency had been collecting Americans’ electronic metadata in bulk. The program was authorized only by a dubious reading of existing law, and when Congress debated the issue it insisted on changes to the program. So even though Snowden broke the law, he contributed to a worthwhile democratic debate.

But that’s not the whole story, as the University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone has pointed out:

The problem is he disclosed vastly more than that, involving foreign intelligence not of Americans but of individuals who aren’t American citizens in other countries. No changes were generally made in those programs and Americans don’t really care. But disclosing those programs has had a serious impact on their being as effective as they had been. I think he did a lot more harm than good…. read more here: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-21/edward-snowden-doesn-t-deserve-a-pardon