In Citizenfour, Snowden specifically highlights Clapper's testimony as one of the factors that solidified his decision to go public. Clapper not only deceived the American public, he quite literally was one of the reasons the program was ultimately exposed.
And I'm glad it was exposed. Spying on every single one of your citizens' interactions and logging that information indefinitely in secret for later inspection has no place in a free society.
Re: declining to answer, other questions were presented in advance for that very hearing and declined in advance by Clapper – they were not asked, and they were not entered in to the record. See the parent Politifact article for sources. Did declining those questions expose secrets?
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals at the federal level ruled that the metadata collection program "exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized" and is therefore not supported by law, i.e. illegal. This happened on May 7th, 2015 and is public record.
It was illegal then and it's illegal now. The circuit court didn't say "as of May 7th, 2015 this is illegal"; they said that the NSA exceeded the scope of surveillance authorized by Congress in October of 2001.
You claimed the metadata collection program was "written about at length" and viewed as "OK". This is evidence from the judicial branch of the US government it is not, in fact, viewed as okay.
And I'm glad it was exposed. Spying on every single one of your citizens' interactions and logging that information indefinitely in secret for later inspection has no place in a free society.
Re: declining to answer, other questions were presented in advance for that very hearing and declined in advance by Clapper – they were not asked, and they were not entered in to the record. See the parent Politifact article for sources. Did declining those questions expose secrets?