No, not everything is a state secret. Documents produced by the state and specifically marked as such are. And yes, stealing those documents and publicly sharing them is treason.
Perhaps treason that serves a higher good. Perhaps not. Reasonable people can disagree. But not need for the scare quotes.
To be a bit pedantic, stealing classified documents is a violation of 18 USC § 1924 ("Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material") and publicly sharing them is a violation of 18 USC § 798 ("Disclosure of classified information").
Treason is defined in 18 USC § 2381 (pursuant to Article III definitional constraints) as a citizen of the United States "lev[ying] war against [the US] or adher[ing] to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere."
In this, US law follows the arguments of Blackstone, who believed that high treason, more so perhaps than any other crime, must be precisely defined and delineated ("For if the crime of high treason be indeterminate, this alone ... is sufficient to make any government degenerate into arbitrary power"). Madison warned in The Federalist that only a narrow Constitutional definition of treason could protect citizens from "new-fangled and artificial treasons" enacted to serve political factionalism. Arguably, were Snowden to be convicted of treason for exposing questionable government activity, it would be a textbook case of constructive treason, precisely that which the Founding Fathers sought to prevent.
Now, Snowden has been tried in the media as being guilty of treason (perhaps most famously by Richard Clarke), but that, I think, is a tough row to hoe, even in a post-9/11 America; the only "enemies" the US is specifically at war with are al-Qa'ida-affiliated terrorists, and there's just no evidence that Snowden had an "intent to betray" the US to terror groups.
Disclosures relating to, e.g., China or Europe are non-treasonous, as we are not at war with any of those states; in the same way, Jonathan Pollard was convicted of espionage due to his spying against the US for Israel, but his actions did not fit the definition of treason.
In summary, the charge of "treason" sets an extremely high legal bar, one that Snowden's actions -- while unquestionably illegal -- almost certainly do not rise to. He is a criminal on the run, certainly; a hero, possibly; a traitor, not at all.
> "adher[ing] to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere."
Incidentally, the information that Snowden shared was clearly not giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy, it was giving information to the people, so as you eloquently point out, treason is not applicable. Unless of course we now consider the citizens of the United States to be the enemy...
i think we have a winner. notice the uncontrolled mass influx of non citizens into the country of late and the preferential treatment they get, especially regarding privacy issues?
Treason (n.): "the crime of betraying one's country.."
This is not an absolute truth. Revealing "state secret" documents is only treason if you identify the elites and elected officials as the country, and not the population. Arguably, when Ed released state secrets to the citizens of his own country, it was NOT treason. He certainly didn't betray the citizens who were being lied to by their government, and the citizens compose much more of the country than the government does.
Perhaps treason that serves a higher good. Perhaps not. Reasonable people can disagree. But not need for the scare quotes.