Whether that's due to the media's portrail of them in film and TV over the years with their omnipotent powers or just the view that the government is an all seeing entity.
So in most people's view he just leaked the governments methods, not the fact they were doing it (and abusin their power in doing so). Because of this the Government can spin this as him leaking their secret sauce rather than them being in the wrong.
A high percentage of Americans are informed by domestic "news" and that newstainment has declared Snowden to be the bad guy as you said.
Among ordinary people not into politics and or tech, few know his name. If they do, they almost always also talk about him being a traitor, threat, etc.
To take advantage of whistleblower laws (or at least, gain public sympathy as one), the criminality you’re uncovering would need to be far, far worse.
That was completely illegal at the time, and I hope that it still is.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/second-circuit-rules-united-stat...
See this for one recent decision indicating that the NSA bulk collection program was both constitutional and legal.
The unfortunate reality is that it falls into a legal grey area and has, in fact, been held by certain courts to be legal.
Which comes back to my original point - any whistleblower who wants to exit with a clean slate really needs to be uncovering unambiguously and horrendously illegal activity. “Possibly illegal” PRISM just wasn’t bad enough for Snowden to get the political or legal protection of public sympathy.
> Which comes back to my original point - any whistleblower who wants to exit with a clean slate really needs to be uncovering unambiguously and horrendously illegal activity.
The issue here is that nothing will ever be “unambiguous and horrendous illegal” enough regarding NSA behaviors, given that the goal post is always moving.