There has been extensive back and forth (not excluding here at the Dag) focussed on the proper way to characterterize Edward Snowden. The polar entries are traitor or full blown patriot/ Ellsberg redux.
More focussed deconstruction debated " "whistleblower" vs. irresponsible publicity seeker unwilling to follow the logical mandate that civil disobeyers must surrender to, rather than flee from, "justice". ( fear quotes purposely used for intended irony...)
Surely the legislation now pending, which has caused the administration to mobilize a full court press in opposition, ends this particular controversy.
He is manifestly a whistle blower, sacrificing home ( in Hawaii!) employment ( highly paid), and pussy ( top-shelf, to all appearance and report), to bring news that a  *US Senator, with all his perks, power, and privelege feared to expose, although he bit smooth through his tongue). .

Can we please call the act, if passed, The Edward Snowden Act? Really, he deserves it.

"General Alexander’s hurried visit
to Capitol Hill came as a leading
Senate critic of the N.S.A.’s large-
scale collection of data about
Americans’ phone calls spoke out
about expansive government
surveillance. He declared that
recent leaks about domestic
spying by Mr. Snowden have
created a “unique moment in our
constitutional history” to reform
what he said has become “an
always expanding, omnipresent
surveillance state.”
Ron Wyden , Democrat of Oregon,
the leading Senate critic and a
member of the Intelligence
Committee, also hinted that the
revelation that the government
has been keeping records ofo every
domestic phone call is not the
only such extensive program. And
he blasted national security
officials in the Obama
administration, saying they have
“actively” misled the American
public about domestic
surveillance"