A 29-year-old who admitted leaking details of a secret U.S. government program that collects massive phone and Internet data now says he doesn't want attention. 

Too late, Edward Snowden. You're getting it -- on every scale, good and bad, across the Internet on social media and on every news broadcast. People of every age and range of experience, including national security experts, are weighing in on what you've done. 

Some love you, others despise you. You're now a lightning rod for spirited debate surrounding government transparency versus public protection against the threat of terrorism. 

Like WikiLeaks' source Bradley Manning, now on trial for leaking secrets, Snowden said he independently decided that the program was counter to American principles and should be revealed. 

"There is no public oversight," he told the Guardian newspaper. 

Like Manning, he went outside the system, and critics are blasting the computer expert for not airing concerns internally. 

Snowden's actions have united some strange bedfellows. Left-leaning filmmaker Michael Moore and right-leaning commentator Glenn Beck tweeted that they think he's a "hero." 

Democratic senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado and Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky say they're worried the government could be overreaching with the program. Opensecrets.org lists Snowden as contributing to the 2012 presidential campaign of Rand Paul's father, libertarian Ron Paul. 

Dozens of Facebook pages supporting Snowden have popped up in the past day. There are at least 2 million mentions of the North Carolina native on Twitter. Comments are so wide-ranging it's hard to put a finger on one theme, but social media aggregator BuzzFeed says that the word "hero" pops up more on Twitter than "traitor." 
How many times has his name come up on Twitter?
There are at least 2 million mentions of the North Carolina native on Twitter.