Back to the topic at hand, this is not good in the least. No matter what you think of the regime, we can't have chaos in the military with each person making an individual judgment as to what they think is fine to 'leak' and would actually be upholding their oath. There is a chain of process for reporting what they believe is illegalities, including, if one wants to go outside the military, through their local Congressman.
Any generic E designation may not have the full knowledge of what he thinks he knows to understand if something that he thinks is being done is a violation of the Constitution and his oath, or part of a bigger security picture that leaking will put his brothers in arms at risk.
I'm not crazy about how Snowden leaked his material, but at least it wasn't intelligence that put soldiers and operatives in harm's way, unlike Manning's leaks. Snowden also didn't take the same oath as Manning. I still think Manning should have been shot.