Today Snowden said he risked his life to expose NSA surveillance practices

[MineralMan]

31. Well, he risked his freedom, anyhow.

His life? Probably not. But, he has already lost a measure of his freedom. He's stuck in Russia, with nowhere else to go. I imagine his Russian is improving, but he's not a Russian.

Would someone have killed him? Unlikely. The information was already compromised and would have been disseminated anyhow. As soon as he passed it along to someone else, there was no going back.

If he does come back to the US, he'll be serving some time in a federal prison, almost certainly. And he knew that there were serious potential penalties for transferring classified information to unauthorized people. That's made clear to everyone who deals with such information, they sign papers to the effect that they won't do it and understand those penalties.

I don't think he risked his life. He risked something though. Was it worth it? I don't know. That's a question only Edward Snowden can answer.