Peter Ludlow (linked from Reason):
The former United States ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, argued that Snowden “thinks he’s smarter and has a higher morality than the rest of us … that he can see clearer than other 299, 999, 999 of us, and therefore he can do what he wants. I say that is the worst form of treason.”
(I haven’t found a more direct source for Bolton’s remarks.) If Snowden had instead sold his info to a rival state, at least he’d be keeping it in the family, as it were, rather than giving it indiscriminately to people who have never taken a government paycheck nor come anywhere near Yale; and it wouldn’t be the great sin of acting on his own initiative.
Later: Rather than go public on his own, Snowden shoulda given the files to 299,999,999 other Americans and let them vote on whether or not to publish.