Agreed that this aspect will be interesting to watch. What I find interesting are that people understand "treason" when someone in the intelligence agency turns over state secrets to foreign powers, but since this guy turned over the secrets to "the people" (I know the Guardian isn't an organ of the citizens of the US but sharing this with US citizens was Snowden's stated intent) it does play more like "whistle blower."

Its kind of too bad it came out in an off year for elections though. Next year would have been better in terms of keeping it fresh in peoples minds just before they went to the polls. That said it will be question #1 I'll be asking congressional candidates next year, "What do you intend to do about the overreaching of the Executive Branch and the Intelligence agencies?"