Look: first off, he didn't tell AT&T about the hack, he told a bunch of news organizations. See http://www.forbes.com/sites/firewall/2010/06/09/atts-ipad-ha... for details. "we did a benefit analysis and decided they could take our story viral the fastest."
One of those organizations presumably told AT&T; all AT&T has ever said is that they learned about the exploit from a business customer.
Second, weev is the same guy who got up on stage at Toorcon and lied about finding an exploit in Firefox. Just flat out lied. One of the ways in which he's a great social manipulator is that he has no qualms about the big lies, and doesn't really care if they're noticed.
Third, at the time, weev said "There is nothing in Apple’s SDK APIs that would allow an application to have this identifier [the ICC-ID] – it is a shared secret that should indicate physical proximity to the iPad." So while it's amusing to see his defenders talk about how unimportant ICC-IDs are, it's an interesting change of tune.
Fourth, even if you believe weev when he says he forced the Amazon delist of gay-themed books (I never have), that goes over the line from activism to exploiting.
Yeah, we do have to protect even unpleasant, obnoxious whistle blowers. I just don't see how weev counts as a whistle blower, and I think that any article on his situation should present the full picture rather than painting him as a misunderstood good guy.