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Imagine if this was actually an FSB operation....

You get a dweeb who resets passwords for a living to steal millions of classified documents and military plans.  He delivers them to you.

You create an Information Operations campaign that convinces American Useful Idiots to cry from the mountaintops that "Snowden is a HERO!  The NSA needs to be abolished!"

THAT FSB officer deserves a medal.

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I will say that exposing oneself to the risk of legal consequences, is what differentiates a whistleblower from leaker/spy.  That's why it's considered noble, not because of their "intentions."
Intentions are for liberals.  Whistleblowing is basically like self-defense, where you have to admit the act in court to be cleared; you can't flee the nation after ending the thug who broke into your house, and expect your self defense claim to be honored absent a full-blown trial.

Snowden didn't even try to go through proper channels, or even semi-controlled channels (which Manning sort of did, since the guy he leaked to censored the most sensitive data).  He went straight to our enemies' with God knows what, since they never divulged it either, and then publicly embarrassed* the US by releasing documents of outrageous info gathering (some apparently fabricated)

*Right or wrong, one of the main reasons for classifying data is to protect our nation's image from damage.  Whether you think it is right for a nation to conceal embarrassing info (be it criminal or comical) is a different question from whether Snowden broke very clear rules that we've agreed to enforce.

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Actually it's stupid, but if you think Uncle Sam is the good guy here than nothing else matters.

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You forgot "the whole US government is a sham!"