The thing is.. as good as his intentions were, I think his deeds in the long run would only practically benefit the extremists of all kinds. Surely enough, Showden ruined a couple of careers of his superiors (and some of his fellows) and that is driving some of those powerful guys insane, so his immediate contribution is heroic. (I mean, it's always a healthy thing to let those in power down once in a while, just for the sake of it, maybe even causing them to be replaced despite the well-known fact that the new ones who'd come to replace the old 'evil ones' will be in no way better and maybe even worse, but merely more cautious this time). How much of a whistle-blower is he.. is a good question. Well, I think he probably is a honest whistle-blower. However, unlike the Hollywood movies where a person could win a struggle against an evil system by exposing its ways to the public, the real world works slightly differently. As much as I personally respect Snowden as well as I admire his intellectual abilities, I think he is yet to mature.