content: How often has a leaker made his activities as public as Snowden has? Almost all of them try to hide their identities, either to protect themselves or enable further leaks. Snowden, on the other hand, announced his identity almost as quickly as possible - and made himself famous in the process. He claimed he it did to protect his teammates and encourage further leakers, but he had to have known the resulting crackdown would only make things harder. I've said before that making himself a hero would be the best protection for any malicious espionage, but it could also be the other way: securing vital defense documents would make countries like Russia more open to protecting him while he stroked his ego.