On the other hand, reviewing the material Snowden exposed reveals time and time again the government cheating and lying and crossing over the bounds set for it with mendacious glee. Should we care that he's not Mother Teresa? Your effort to smear Snowden reveals more about you than him.
If Ed had one real beef over one serious incident or program, and walked out with the info to tell that story...he’d be the mythical hero that you dream of. Ed didn’t do that...he basically carted off every single detail over thousands of programs and episodes, and these will be used to cherry-pick the right times to trip up the US on some relationship, or take down the right foreign government or party. At best, Ed has an understanding of maybe one-tenth of one percent of the files that he took.
I should add....since 1945....what US government has not cheated or lied? Democrat or Republican....it doesn’t matter. You see, that’s the funny part about announcing this list of terrible things. People think that Ed’s work will correct or fix all of those terrible things. Sadly, names will change, IT intrusions will evolve, and life will go on. All Ed did...was make the system evolve, and probably question IT administrators they hire for the NSA operations, with extreme audits conducted over their monthly operations and behavior. People will tire of the intrusions created by Ed-patrol, and turnover of high-security administrators will be a regular event of the future.