I doubt Snowden was ignorant about what happened to those who "followed the rules". Their lives were ruined and nothing changed. https://www.theguardian.com/us

I doubt Snowden was ignorant about what happened to those who "followed the rules". Their lives were ruined and nothing changed. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/22/how-pentagon.. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/22/how-pentagon.... "None of the lawful whistleblowers who tried to expose the government’s warrantless surveillance – and Drake was far from the only one who tried – had any success,” Devine told me. “They came forward and made their charges, but the government just said, ‘They’re lying, they’re paranoid, we’re not doing those things.’ And the whistleblowers couldn’t prove their case because the government had classified all the evidence. Whereas Snowden took the evidence with him, so when the government issued its usual denials, he could produce document after document showing that they were lying. That is civil disobedience whistleblowing.”