Yeah, the answer to this is just too obvious.  The "proper channels" are part of the corrupt system.  They can't be trusted.

Does anyone seriously believe Snowden's leaks are actually changing anything permanently? Snowden has only changed his future prospects in life.

And I like the 'almost leaker' Binney guy saying 'Snowden did the right thing', my ass, why didn't Binney do 'the right thing' and then and buy himself a one way ticket to China?

Changing anything would mean Congress would have to do it's job, not BS partisan attacks on Benghazi or the IRS, or repeal Obamacare 37 times, or write more unborn protection laws.  That absence of devotion to their responsibilities in oversight, and voters who don't care if all they do is play partisan politics, combined with the 30 second attention span of Americans ensures that nothing much is going to happen.

In the end, the NSA is so poorly run ( a 3 month wonder can hack the outfit from top to bottom) it is frankly no more threat to your privacy, and 99.9999% of no use to national security, than your kid's latest X-Box. Let them have their toys, it's inevitable the government will tap 'metadata' because every corporation, nation and entity on the planet that possibly can is doing the same thing.

If Snowden or anyone else did leak evidence of actual crimes at NSA, illegal use of the data to harm innocent people for instance, the Party out of power would be hopping like horny toads off a hot skillet demanding hearings and investigations.