Snowden's naivete was grounded in arrogance.

It sure wouldn't have been hard to create a digital deadman that released his information while he stayed in the country leveraging whistleblower protection. Or, he could have found his version of deepthroat and told his story. Or, he dumps everything on 4chan or on the Tor network and let someone else expose it... if all he actually cared about was exposing the moral ineptitude of the US.

Alas no, he was much more interested in the attention and TV interviews.

He lives in exile because he wasn't interested in whistleblowing.

You really think he could have dumped all of that without having it traced back to him? Aren't these audited systems?