In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, Clapper said the problems facing the U.S. intelligence community over its collection of phone records could have been avoided. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I will. Had we been transparent about this from the outset right after 9/11—which is the genesis of the 215 program—and said both to the American people and to their elected representatives, we need to cover this gap, we need to make sure this never happens to us again, so here is what we are going to set up, here is how it’s going to work, and why we have to do it, and here are the safeguards… We wouldn’t have had the problem we had,” Clapper said.

“What did us in here, what worked against us was this shocking revelation,” he said, referring to the first disclosures from Snowden. If the program had been publicly introduced in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, most Americans would probably have supported it. “I don’t think it would be of any greater concern to most Americans than fingerprints. Well people kind of accept that because they know about it. But had we been transparent about it and say here’s one more thing we have to do as citizens for the common good, just like we have to go to airports two hours early and take our shoes off, all the other things we do for the common good, this is one more thing.”

This is the right conclusion - the mass meta-data surveillance program should not have been kept secret from the American people - but its the wrong reason to reach that conclusion. Clapper seems to reach this conclusion due to pragmatic, tactical reasons - that it would be easier to address the security problems that Snowden has created if the government wasn't simultaneously trying to defend the fact that they were operating a secret mass domestic surveillance program. That observations is certainly correct. The greatest threat Snowden presents to the institution of the military is the possibility that he might inspire others to do the same thing. Thats a moral argument, and the government is having trouble winning that moral argument because they were caught red handed - preventing a legitimate political and legal dialog about the program they were running. There are a few other nuggets in the Snowden revelations that have also caused concerns, such as the revelation that the NSA undermined public encryption standards, but none of it is as significant as the revelation about meta-data. If not for that revelation, perhaps, few would have sympathy for him.

However, the right reason to reach the conclusion that the government shouldn't have operated a secret mass domestic surveillance program isn't to avoid the consequences of getting caught doing that. The right reason is because the dialog about the policy and the Constitution that this program inspires is an important one and its valuable to have it. If the American people decided that they don't want this program - thats the right decision. If our political process determines that this program is Unconstitutional - thats the right decision. There will always be people who think this program is a good idea and there will be people who think this program is a bad idea. The political process is the right way to determine who is right.

Furthermore, by short circuiting that process, the government has undermined some of the support that the program might have otherwise received from it. Many people who support this program only do so because they believe that there really are sufficient safeguards and constraints around it to protect the privacy of Americans. Unfortunately, those assurances are difficult to accept when the government has been hiding the very existence of the program to begin with.

The real issue here is that the pursuit of this program in the shadows, as well as other programs such as the monitoring of the content of emails and text messages sent in the Salt Lake City area during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, sheds light on what really is a genuine disdain for the conclusions of our political process. Everyone disagrees with some of the conclusions of our political process, but if you choose to sidestep the process because you disagree with its conclusions, you are threatening the rule of law, something the government should never, ever do.

Spy Chief: We Should’ve Told You We Track Your Calls - The Daily Beast