Spy or whisleblower?

I wonder if Edward Snowden didn't think for a moment to become a spy instead of a whisleblower, when he was sleeping on a bench in the Moscow airport.

These are some significant advantages if you are a spy:

If you are arested you can be swaped with other agents (see case of Anna Chapman).
Or better: you employer could exfiltrate you from the target country.

You are honoured: Kim Philby received an honorary colonel title from Soviet Union.Meanwhile Snowden is treated like a beggar in Moscow airport.

You have a better pay: Aldrich Ames bought himself a Jaguar and a 540000$ house with the money from russians.

True, the workload is bigger: you have to operate years, and transmit secret information many times, but if you will enjoy thrilling sensantions.

I hope that Snowden is not a spy, because a spy does much harm to it's country, than a whisleblower.
If the whisleblower leaks some documents, then the goverment knows the problem in time, fix the hole, some scapegoates are punished for appeasing the public thirst for blood, the secret agencies become more discreet in their actions, and in the fortunate case some policies are changed and the goverment becomes more open and democratic.
In case of a spy, the foreign country knows your moves and you don't know that your policy is manipulated by a foreign country. When you find out that you have a problem the cost are bigger, because you don't know what was exposed, you become paranoid, and mistrustfull.
Also the foreign country could make public you actions, and tarn your reputation.(See case Hruschiov and U2 spy plane shut down in Soviet Union. Or maybe Snowden case is another example?)
I think is better for the americans to convince Snowden to comeback , before he spills everything he knows to russians,chinese,venezueleans,iranians and god knows who. It will be lame to sell secrets for a bowl of hot soup.
But the fact that US is not offering a milder sentence, shows that he didn't knew too much, and it is good only as a punishing example, to discourage other whisleblowers.

The whisleblowers appears because higher you go in ranking in a organisation, the higher is the hypocrisy.

Let's say you join a religious group to help people. The religious group declares that it protects poor and the week, but their top clergy is laudering money, support terorist groups, and/or is full of sodomist.

Most people will blend in with the group, say that the emperor has the most beautifull clothes, despite the fact they see the imperial fat belly and the imperial small hairy nuts.

The whilseblower is the only nut who will shout that the emperor is naked.And everybody will try to kill the whisleblower because they want  to maintan a mask of honesty and common interest while they robb you.

Speaking about the hypocrisy: the Europeans "didn't know" that they were spied by US.
They knew it (at least their secret services),and I bet that all the EU goverments have a similar spy program, but they didn't have the guts to tell it to US to back off.
Now they take advantage of this scandal, and make a lot of political noise maybe US will step back in this issue.