Though I recognize the thread is pretty much over with, I'll add on to irishcoffee's claim...

It's very important to understand what Snowden's motives in evaluating the validity of the NSA documents. None of the documents have been released in their entirety, and often times the only thing that is released is a paragraph or two, or perhaps a couple of slides. Is there enough context in the partial source material presented to back up the article's claims, or is there more to the story? There have been several times when the media released one story, only to be contradicted when they later released further portions of the same document. For example, see [1], [2] and [3].

If he's whistleblowing on these program like he claims, there's no reason to doubt the validity of the documents; if he's just a disgruntled systems administrator with an axe to grind, the documents we see may cut down to remove the context and just show us what he and Greenwald want us to see, knowing full well that the NSA generally can't provide evidence denying the claims without releasing more classified information. When you add things like claims that other writers were forbidden from criticizing or contradicting Greenwald's narrative on Snowden at the Guardian[4] and at the Intercept on other subjects[5], it adds to suspicions that we're getting a distorted view of the subject.

Regarding Snowden's grandstanding, you don't even need to go all of the way back to high school to start seeing claims that don't quite mesh with reality. He lied about his qualifications to get his initial job as an NSA contractor[6] and by his own admission took the Booz Allen job specifically to gather information to leak[7]. That doesn't strike me as whistleblowing - instead of "I saw something wrong and I'm reporting it" it's instead "I'm determined to find something wrong and report it." That alone should sound sirens in everyone's head that whatever was released had a skewed perspective to it.

He claimed to be a senior intelligence official, while the NSA claims he was a low-level systems administrator. If we look at his actual words, though, compare for example his description of PRISM in 2013[8] to his description of it in 2014 after all of the details were released[9]. They're so different that it's apparent to me that he didn't actually know any of the details on PRISM beforehand except for general information mixed with his own assumptions. Other sources have documented a whole litany of other contradictions in his statements ([10] for example).

I've seen so many people say not to focus on Snowden, focus on the documents, but you can't fully evaluate the context of the documents without knowing his motive. Is he a heroic whistleblower like he claims, or is he a disgruntled ex-employee trying to lash out at his former employer and gain notoriety in the process through misleading disclosures?

[1] http://electrospaces.blogspot.nl/2014/04/what-is-known-about... (jump down to section 5, just below the 'PRISM Tasking Process' slide)

[2] http://electrospaces.blogspot.nl/2013/11/screenshots-from-bo...

[3] http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2015/02/snowden-would-not-...

[4] http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2015/03/... (search for 'verboten')

[5] http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/02/ken-silverstein-...

[6] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/21/us-usa-security-sn...

[7] http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/snowden-s...

[8] http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-says-nsa-has-direct-a... (search for "We've got PRISM")

[9] http://blog.ted.com/we-dont-have-to-give-up-liberty-to-have-... (search for "The NSA's own slides")

[10] https://www.beaconreader.com/joshua-foust/the-edward-snowden...