(or my) imaginations of a fully-conscious, utterly circumspect Renaissance Man. (There seem not to be any DaVincis around with whom to compare.)
Is he also to be ridiculed because he did-Not: scheme meticulously to create some secret rat-hole-with Persian rugs, before acting? Fact is: we. do. not. know. the full-extent of his pilfered data/no matter what Anyone (esp. NSA talking heads) might speculate--nor can we be sure that NSA actually Knows [the negative]: that which {they Hope!} he did not filch.
I see all of their talking-heads scurryinyFar-Around that interesting topic..
(And along with All of US: I cannot comprehend whether BHO Likes! the burgeoning Securitat Staat--is thus, a closet-Control Freak/Who Knew?)

So, as in Pyramus and Thisbe: There he stands, all illegible; perpetual fodder next for every cockamamie assignment of scurrilous-or-frivolous "motivations"--like Lee Harvey O, Adam Lanza and a passel of other people we all imagine we can psychoanalyze, and about whom we know less than ..about neutrinos, to date.

What is evident, thus far: is that he DID 'risk everything' in the sense that all do comprehend (if they try): obviously sans even a Bolt Hole
(we have no idea how much of his gross income he ever saved--A Lot? would be inconsistent with his suggested 'living style', I wot) etc.
IMΣE there are damn-few amongst our comfortable/pampered selves who would even entertain fantasies of such a Principled Action--no more likely to be about 'future remuneration' and other scurrilous suppositions--than any other motivation everyone imagines self capable of assigning.
The vox-pop will do as it Does: usually denigrate and pontificate, but.. THIS.. TIME.. I have a small sense that The Mob Will Get It (perhaps a majority already have?)

I have read-for-comprehension your rebuttals to the Goodness?/Relevance!/Importance of this event.
As always these are in Logical-format, but thus far, are sans the huge-Scale/the many clear consequences already unfolding: you seem still.. naive about the fishbowl in which we swim, thus your [-] conclusions I must deem unReasonable. At this stage of 'revelations'.

Sending him back for Murican justice, as Rand juxtaposed: IS precisely tantamount to "sending back Russkie defectors for Soviet justice".
(Just one of the aspects of your logic-sans-Scale arguments. You may believe that the US is not sufficiently-broken for travesty to trump Justice):
I believe the converse. More reluctantly than you imagine.

Finally on the Goodness/Badness! polarity matters, re this Event: I do not deem that you are Wrong and I am Right, as in purest digital think.
Mainly I believe that we both lack knowledge of many details/aspects--guaranteed by the extant-Press and by daily immersion in the omnipresent language-murder of our Tribe
(especially over that last 150 years or so.)
Somewhat-believable material.. may surface ... sufficiently un-spun as to corroborate either of our present positions.

But for right now..


Ed: oTyp