Spying is what the NSA is supposed to do

Domestic spying is the controversial/illegal activity he was blowing the whistle on.

Dumping info on legal NSA activities (like foreign surveillance), while fascinating to read, is not whistleblowing.

I think it's fair to say that the extent of the spying on global citizens being so absurdly extreme was also worth whistleblowing - it's not location of hidden bases and spies, it's that General Dynamics " collect the contents or metadata of all cell phone calls in the Bahamas, Mexico, the Philippines, and Kenya. The Australian Signals Directorate has cooperated with NSA on the collection in the Philippines" and so on.

Being Canadian, I see him as a whistleblower as well, since the extent of canadian surveillance was also revealed.

I'd argue it's even better that he did the jobs of multiple whistleblowers by sharing the extent of domestic spying in other countries. No need to wait years for other people to put their lives in jeopardy.

> the controversial/illegal activity

I wasn't aware that it was only one controversial activity.

And I wasn't aware that one could only blow the whistle on illegal activity.