Snowden's motives are political, and they could also be construed as an effort to trouble and shame the people who didn't agree with his interpretations. And whether any of it is in the public interest is also debatable in some circles. Of course, I'm just playing devil's advocate.
In my view there's a pretty clear distinction between simply linking to an e-mail dump containing credit card numbers and publishing an e-mail dump containing credit card numbers.
Brown was interested in those e-mails because he actually had a journalistic endeavor in Project PM, an "actionable data set regarding the intelligence contracting industry, the PR industry's interface with totalitarian regimes, the mushrooming infosec/"cybersecurity" industry."
You can keep calling him a "crazy heroin addict" if it makes you feel better, there's bias on your part for obvious reasons, but it only makes you look silly.
I'm comfortable with what my reaction to Barrett Brown's case says about me and my beliefs, far more than I am comfortable with what my beliefs about the Snowden case might connote.
In my view there's a pretty clear distinction between simply linking to an e-mail dump containing credit card numbers and publishing an e-mail dump containing credit card numbers.
Brown was interested in those e-mails because he actually had a journalistic endeavor in Project PM, an "actionable data set regarding the intelligence contracting industry, the PR industry's interface with totalitarian regimes, the mushrooming infosec/"cybersecurity" industry."
You can keep calling him a "crazy heroin addict" if it makes you feel better, there's bias on your part for obvious reasons, but it only makes you look silly.