You are the one inviting everyone to be a law unto himself. If any would-be-leaker feels the government is doing any wrong doing, he's free to take the law unto himself and release that information to the public along with whatever else fits into his usb key. There are proper channels to handle this, which don't involve betraying your country and breaking one of the most fundamental laws in the country, and the fact the government was acting illegaly doesn't justify breaking the law.
https://news.vice.com/story/exclusive-snowden-tried-to-tell-...
As Doge would say, "Much faith, wow.". I see it more of a mafia organization. You try to speak out within the org? You'll sleep with the fishes, metaphorically speaking.
> If any would-be-leaker feels the government is doing any wrong doing, he's free to [...] release that information
So Snowden is justified in doing what he did?
I never did address the leak of the hacking tools, IMO that is less in the public's interest and the leaker's motive is probably to damage the agency, but to re-use the Mafia comparison, someone who can see clearly what that organization does (rather than just gulp propaganda from Fox News or Russia Today) probably doesn't feel that bad if his actions damage the org/that is what motivates him.
And the myth of the US being better. Pah. China's elite are corrupt as fuck, but I don't think the US can be proud by saying "well we're very fucking corrupt, but China's worse at that!". Military-industrial complex, Halliburton, Citizens United, Wisconsin, Donald Trump and his GOP Congress still plowing through a bill that will strip health protection from millions... But oh no, look at the Chinese.
To quote Brandeis, "Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution."