thanks

Which leads to the obvious question of why didn't he just cut to the chase and say something like your OP in the beginning instead of howling up and down for months that he went through proper channels, he went to the IG office, and that he sent dozens of e-mails alleging abuse to his supervisors?? If he says that from day one (instead of slowly morphing his story to fit that narrative as opposed to his original one), the people buy it and it never becomes a story now...

He had to have known this bluff was going to get checked in a major way, damaging his credibility...An official complaint to the IG would have created a Mt. Everest of paperwork...When the IG himself starts giving interviews (and in the process putting his job on the line and the jobs almost everyone working in his office) stating unequivocally that Snowden never reported any wrongdoing to his office, I knew something was up...

And I don't think that would have made good sense if the point was the inflict damage to the credibility of the agency while maintaining the attention of the general public.

Being cynical or not, the truth is that one large revelation would have been very easy to sweep under the rug precisely because our collective attention span is a measure of days, not weeks or months or years. We will forget as a population important details if we aren't bombarded with them incessantly.

I think the idea of spreading the leak out over months or years was genius not only for their own potential gain, which I won't necessarily discount, but also for cause of change. I think we are seeing the benefits of this now. The state doesn't want to admit entirely to their transgressions. But I think we are seeing now through court cases, congressional action and statements by the administration that they realize the only way to go forward is to make some meaningful gesture toward validating public discontent.

This never would have happened if they thought the storm would simply blow over in a week's time.

...that could be wrong.

Also...there are men of color in the US who have a more documented reason to not follow lawful procedures when they are accused of breaking the law than Snowden

Snowdens reasons for not raising the issues internally are speculative at best