For better or worse, there are different prescribed legal procedures with their own protections for whistleblowing that involves classified information. You're supposed to leak that to Congressional oversight committees with security clearances, not the press. There is an obvious weakness here if you don't trust Congress itself, but that is still the law.

As for Clinton, the issue there as I understand it isn't so much "intended harm." There are simply different consequences for intentional versus unintentional data spills.