Are you arguing that you should only get in trouble for leaking if the information you leaked is surprising?
How about a list of compromised Chinese telecommunications systems? It's not surprising that the NSA would infiltrate those systems in order to complete some of its objectives, but the list of which systems were compromised when is sensitive information that Snowden leaked right after revealing he was in Hong Kong in a misguided attempt to gain asylum there.
Maybe if the US had proper protections for whistleblowers, they wouldn't need to seek asylum or take such sensitive information with them as insurance.