The Fourth Amendment says:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The Courts have long held that this amendment includes the right to privacy. See ACLU v. Clapper below.
Is it not our 'Patriotic Duty' to report wrongdoing no matter who the culprit is? The Second Circuit in ACLU v. Clapper held that the action by the NSA, in reference to their data collection, was illegal. See reference below.
"Another aspect of the Patriot Act, which has been highly confidential
was the Telephone Metadata program, which under § 215 of the Patriot
Act, had allowed the NSA to collect data about Americans’ telephone
calls in bulk, was reviewed by the Second Circuit in ACLU v. Clapper, in which the court held the Telephone Metadata program illegal under the Congress’ original intent under the §215."
Ref. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fourth_amendment
Edward Snowden is charged by the US Government with:
"18 U.STCT 641 Theft of Government Property
18 U.S.C. ?93(d) Unauthorized Communication of National Defense information
18 U.S.C. 798(a)(3) Willful Communication of Classified Communications to an Unauthorized Person."
Ref. https://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/us-vs-edward-j-snowden-criminal-complaint/496/
In this following video Esward Snowden explains his reasons for speaking out,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loLSdh26V5I
It appears to me that the only reason why Edward Snowden is in trouble with the Government is that it does not respect our Constitution, if it were not so, this illegal collection of our data would have never been carried out, at great monetary expense to all taxpayers, who paid for the elaborate, expensive NSA installations.
We are told that the Government has no money to help the poor, provide free coverage for healthcare, and education, etc. but, apparently, we have plenty of taxpayer monies to spy on citizens, and send them to their death in very, very costly wars in foreign lands. Moreover, our politicians generally agree that our infrastructure is crumbling and is outdated but none direct their attention to this problem either. Their attention is on overturning foreign Governments, like Venezuela at present, by supplying goods of all kinds, to support these power plays. They do not see the many needs right at home in our country, where people live on the streets, hungry, cold, and sick.