content: Less hero and more the guy who had the right publicity at the right time. There was at least a dozen leaks before snowden and a lot of crazy stuff that went down during the Clinton administration. Everyone in the hacking community knew what was up but everyone thought there were kooks, Edward Snowden somehow pulls off that tech support guy who knows what cool apps to use on your iPhone look so he got everyone's attention. When we had Jam Echelon Day people didn't say shit about the government but would freak out if you mentioned the y2k hoax like that was even a thing.