Snowden exposed the twofacedness of America's leadership, in a way that can't be easily swept under the rug. He's a whistleblower and people appear to care more about his revelation of information than the information itself, which is damning.
Maybe if America ran a proper ship, things wouldn't get released.
What most countries consider libel is free speech in the US, which is why the US standards for libel, especially against public figures, is higher than most other countries.
Specifically, the First Amendment protection of free speech (and the identical rules incorporated against the states by the 14th Amedment) are why, among other impacts:
(1) In the US, falsity is an element of libel, rather than truth being a defense (or, in some foreign jurisdictions, not even necessarily being defense always.)
(2) In the US, libel against public figures (either in general, or limited purpose public figures within the scope in which they are public figures), requires the plaintiff to prove actual malice on top of the elements of libel that apply in other cases.
> It is not for criticizing; the first sentence of TFA says "accusing Russian soldiers of committing crimes in Ukraine." So, libel.
He shared a video of Russian troops committing crimes, in Ukraine. Which they are - both in that video and thousands of others besides. Truthful statements are not libel.
And then there are thousands of ucranian war crimes which you have no trouble to ignore. Or your own war crimes in Iraq and other countries, exposed by Assange, who, unlike Gluhovskii, trusted his part of the world legal system to protect him..
In approximately the same sense that reporting about Abu Ghraib could be considered to impact American "national security", or sharing videos of abuses by Israeli soldiers in Gaza could be considered to impact Israeli "national security".
Maybe if America ran a proper ship, things wouldn't get released.