Right, FLED. He is fleeing the USA because the government are after him because he revealed their corruption. Sure, the media could spin it but people already know.

Well if we're going to spin a narrative, allow me to spin a different one just as reality-based as yours. He took a job to get a clearance, worked there for a few months to get access to sensitive information, dumped it to the internet before he had to take a lie detector test and took off to avoid any consequences of his actions. And wow, what are the odds, he ended up in a country with a recent history of espionage with the USA (I'm sure we do it too, I'm just pointing out that it's an interesting choice).

Ah yes, the classic overtly telling everyone that you are taking their information version of espionage!

Usually countries try to keep their spies in positions where they can continuing leaking information, and usually they try to hide the fact that they are obtaining the information. Anyone who thinks that this looks anything like espionage is either uninformed or a US government shill.

I didn't say anyone put him up to it. I'm saying that Russia has an incentive to get on his good side for the time being. He has information that they undoubtedly want and have probably been working to get their hands on.

You are trying to argue that his intent was to harm the United States except that nothing he has done is inconsistent with reasonable behavior associated with well intentioned whistle blowing. The only incentive for his actions supported by evidence is the desire to do good.

He'd been employed by the NSA and CIA since 2006, and had top-secret clearance by 2009. Presumably this obviates the theory of "worked there for a few months to get access to sensitive information".

Snowden himself made a similar claim minus the clearance part:

"My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked,” he told the Post on June 12. “That is why I accepted that position about three months ago.”

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/exclusive...

Of course, this is trusting that the South China Morning Post is faithfully reporting what he said in the interview.

I doubt Snowden is experiencing a consequence-free existence right now. He's avoiding the consequences of his actions in the same way that I eat to avoid the consequences of hunger.

Didn't he go to Hong Kong first, then leak the information? You can argue that he would have been picked up in the US had he stayed, and you're probably right, but if you depart in advance you can't properly be said to be fleeing, plus it's pretty understanable that a government would look askance at a person who a) leaked to a foreign media outlet, and only to a foreign media outlet and b) did so from the territory of a strategic rival (as opposed to some neutral place like Iceland, or Sweden, which have generous criteria for political asylum.