Ecuador is providing protection to a whistleblower that is trying to help you question an unconstitutional program and reign in abuses. In a way that makes Ecuador a greater defender of the US Constitution than the USG.
I don't know about you, but my loyalty is to the system of governance and rights laid out by the Constitution before some amorphous geographic shape determined by natural boundaries and history. I see Ecuador as helping the person that is helping protect the Constitution. I don't necessarily know their motivations or agree with the reason they may be acting the way they are, but I do know that the World needs more people like Snowden, and people willing to go to bat for Snowden, if we are going to be able to defend the Bill of Rights and other documents/policies outlining basic human rights.
P.S. Threatening economic sanctions isn't "nice" or "classy" either. The US is as guilty as Ecuador for making this into an adversarial tete-a-tete.
What it crosses to me is the boundary between loyalty to one's leaders and loyalty to one's country. Obama is going after Snowden, and I can either support or not support that action, that's my right as a citizen. But when another country takes action against my country, that suddenly becomes an act of agression directed at me, and every other citizen of the US.
That's not "nice", or "classy" at all.