[ewheeler]

(original HN title was something like: if Snowden's leaks were so damaging, why aren't his NSA supervisors being fired?)

I think we know that they haven't been because if they truly believe (as they are publicly claiming) that the leaks caused "irreversible and significant damage", then they would publicly fire anyone with any potential role in allowing such a leak to happen (read: failing to prevent it from happening). The responsibility in the chain of command goes all the way up, so in an organization like NSA the security failure cannot be blamed only on Snowden.