Manning supporters (Creative Commons)

University of Southern California Law Professor Edward Smith said this would not impact NSA whistleblower Edwin Snowden.

Snowden leaked information showing that the NSA gathers telephone and Internet records.

“The Manning verdict is not going to have anything to do with anybody outside of the military. The Manning verdict is under the military justice system. The only people who can be tried the way he was tried are military people. The process that happens at civilian trials are so different that it’s hard to draw any conclusions about what might happen to non-military people,” Smith said.

Other experts, however, say that this will prevent other would-be whistleblowers from sharing information.

Blogger Kevin Gosztola told Truth-out that the verdict has affected whistleblowing already.

"The effect on whistleblowers has already been seen. Bradley Manning's case had an influence on Edward Snowden's ultimate decision to flee to Hong Kong. He did not want to be put in a prison cell like Bradley Manning for nine months in conditions that were essentially solitary confinement," Gosztola said.

Military.com agreed, claiming that Manning's trial "gives a boost to the Obama administration's aggressive pursuit of people it believes have leaked national security secrets to the media."

Elizabeth Goiten, the co-director of the liberty and national security program at New York University said that the judge in the Manning case found that Manning's intent in leaking documents did not matter.

"What that says is that the Espionage Act will not distinguish between traitors and whistle-blowers," Goiten told Military.com. This could be true for Snowden as well.

"I think what this sends loud and clear to anyone like Snowden or anyone contemplating being the next Snowden is, if you have given over documents, unauthorized, to anyone, you're looking at serious time in jail," Charles Stimson, a former Bush administration defense official, told Military.com.

Not everyone agrees, though, that the Manning case was a positive step in prosecuting whistleblowers. According to MSNBC, "Tuesday’s verdict by military judge Colonel Denise Lind was a setback for the Obama administration’s aggressive prosecution of leaks."

During Obama's administration, the Department of Justice has charged more leakers with violating the Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined. It also charged Manning with aiding the enemy, something which National Whistleblower Center executive director Stephen Kohn told MSNBC has "had a chilling effect."

Smith said that it should have been obvious to Manning that he would go to jail for his leak, but the Snowden case is, in some ways, very different.

“For someone in the military to do that, I can’t find any justification, but I think Snowden is much closer to the whistleblower paradigm. He has blown it because if you go back to the classic civil disobedience approach, going back to Martin Luther King and Letters from Birmingham Jail the idea...if you think the law is unjust, then violate the law, but place yourself under legal punishment, you don’t walk away…For Snowden to try to make claims of a civil disobedience sort, he becomes absolutely inconsistent if he runs away,” Smith said.

Snowden has been charged with two espionage charges. When he fled the U.S., he said he did so because he did not want to be treated the same way as Manning, who spent almost a year in solitary confinement. Smith said, however, that since Snowden is not in the military he could not be put in solitary confinement the same way Manning was.

Reach Executive Producer Hannah Madans here.