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Criticism against the US government's response to the Edward Snowden scandal overlooks two vitally important aspects of this case.

The first misconception is that Snowden is being pursued by the US solely because he has released information that is embarrassing to the US government.

The criticism seems to paint Snowden as a whistle-blower who is being unfairly persecuted because he exposed a widespread practice of domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies.

However, it's important to remember that by revealing to newspapers, including the South China Morning Post, the activities of US intelligence agencies against other countries, he went much further. He went from being a whistle-blower to moving ever closer to being an asset for foreign countries and intelligence services.

This is not to say that he is now or ever was an agent of a foreign government, but it doesn't really matter - some of what he chose to expose had the same effect by sharing information which focused only on other countries, the type of espionage in which every government in the world participates.

The difference is an important one, especially for someone who swore allegiance to the US.

The second mistake is assuming the Snowden affair somehow makes the US focus on corporate cyber theft hypocritical.

The argument goes that since the US clearly was spying on other countries, this no longer puts them in a position to criticize other countries for stealing trade secrets and intellectual property from US companies.

But nothing in the Snowden revelations to date has suggested that US intelligence agencies or the US military have penetrated computer networks of corporations or companies abroad in order to pass patent-holding secrets or intellectual property on to US companies so that they might benefit from products that they did not design. Cyber political espionage and cyber business espionage are not the same thing, even if some countries would prefer to believe they are.

Every country is involved in intelligence-gathering against other countries to a certain extent, so it should come as no surprise that the US pursues such action.

When a country gets caught spying, they solve the problem bilaterally and move on. This has been happening for centuries. It happened so often between the US and Russia that it could have made for a nightly TV show.

The US should, at last, have an actual debate about what the proper balance is between civil liberties and security. It is a balance that the US has always struggled with, going back to its founding. If this is the wake-up call the country needs, so be it.

But in the rush to demonize the US for its actions throughout the Snowden affair and before, people both in the US and overseas should keep in mind that not all espionage is created equal. Distinctions between foreign and domestic, and between corporate and governmental, should not be forgotten.

Alexander Ely, an independent foreign policy analyst currently based in Beijing and former editor-in-chief of The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs