The US has a long tradition of not jailing its political lawbreakers, though. The way they pitch immunity in this case is to claim that a prosecution of an NSA

The US has a long tradition of not jailing its political lawbreakers, though. The way they pitch immunity in this case is to claim that a prosecution of an NSA official that broke the law would cause the remaining NSA employees to be on-guard for lawbreaking, and too busy to watching their ass to do their job at the NSA effectively, leading to terrorist attacks against the US. In effect, they say that it is unreasonable for us to expect the NSA to both obey the law and do their jobs. Nevermind that they've re-written the laws to make their invasive surveillance completely legal.