You're completely misrepresenting this.

He didn't give them any documents, he didn't tell them all the computers, he only _showed_ them a sample of them. They were also only civilian computers.

I think civilians all over the world had a right to know that they were being spied on by the U.S. government. What difference does it make if a person is a U.S. citizen or a Hong Kong citizen? Human rights are human rights.

Every other government, including the Chinese, are spying on US civilians as well. And in this case, it seems like the Chinese civilians were the kinds of civilians any other country would be spying on as well. I haven't seen a convincing argument for Snowden or others as to why he took documents unrelated to domestic spying. If he had only whistleblew the domestic stuff, I bet a lot more politicians would be open to pardoning him.

If a Russian citizen published documents proving that the Russian government was extensively spying on Americans, I doubt you would condemn the leaker. I wouldn't.

If I were Russian, I probably would. As an American, I'd be indifferent to both the leaker and the spying activity.

>If he really wanted to be treated as a whistleblower...

did you just no true scotsman whistleblowing?

As if "being treated as a whistle blower" in a positive sense is even a thing.