[tymekpavel]

> If he had released weapons designs instead of NSA documents, would you support his galavanting across HK and Russia?

I think you're missing the point. The fact is he didn't release weapons designs; he released information pointing to surveillance programs that violate the 4th amendment.

> The question, "Is the NSA program unconstitutional?" is a far different one than "Should those who release confidential documents be arrested?"

The two questions you ask are not mutually exclusive, because whistleblowers need protection when surfacing evidence of illegal behavior. You seem to be taking arguments to their absolute extremes rather than considering the fact that there are instances where there is a reasonable expectation that individuals should be protected. That doesn't mean there should be no state secrets, it means there should be protections for individuals who reveal state secrets that demonstrate the government is not acting in accordance with the law. Furthermore, I would argue that state secrets that hide evidence of wrongdoing from the public should most certainly be leaked.

[mikeyouse]

Whistleblowers do indeed need protection. Unfortunately for Snowden, current whistleblower laws only protect him if he leaked to his agencies IG;

    Disclosure of information that is required by law or Executive Order
    to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or the conduct
    of foreign affairs is unprotected, unless made to the agency’s Inspector
    General, to “another employee designated by the head of the agency to
    receive such disclosures” or to the Office of the Special Counsel.

Obviously these laws need to be improved, but selective enforcement leaves a ton of room for politics to infiltrate the whistleblowing. It was only a few years ago that Bush's special council at the OSC was arrested for doing precisely that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Special_Counsel#Scott...