Snowden is too much of an idealist and was not smart about his whistleblowing at all. The US government had an ax to grind with him for his embarrassing leaks and did everything they could to discredit both him and his message. He never intended to get stuck in Moscow and had a flight plan to flee to Latin America, but the US government purposely timed the revocation of his passport during a layover both to discredit him, and the information that he leaked.
If he was as principled and only cared about transparency, he should have surrendered and just faced prosecution at home. Instead, he chose to stay in Russia and play into Putin's propaganda.
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