Actually Snowden broke the law. He signed a confidentiality agreement and was working under the official secrets act. He knowingly committed a felony by stealing information and giving it away. So Snowden is clearly a criminal who had no right to make the judgement he did in terms of what he thought people should know.
He's not a whistleblower because no illegal activity was taking place, maybe intrusive, but so far not shown to be illegal - hence the story pretty much has vanished.
So basically for no real gain, Snowden has pretty much ruined his life and has to hide out with a cancelled passport until eventually, and it will happen, the US catch him and he is written out of the history books forever.
In terms of feee speech. Pretty much everyday somewhere there is a newspaper with a caricature of a politician looking ridiculous. And politicians are at least real things, unlike religious figures or "prophets" that quite clearly are not.
