“in the fact that in disclosing illegal surveillance programs”…
Snowden would have been much more likely to be treated as a protected “whistle blower” if he had blown the whistle on a few specific programs, rather than vacuuming up everything he could get his hands on and giving it all away (even the things that haven’t been published yet can no longer be relied upon, so he broke those too whether he intended to or not.) I strongly suspect that people who view him as a hero think that the U.S. shouldn’t be spying at all…which is a fine position if one can figure out how to exist in a world where none of the most likely threats are out in the open.
