Daniel Ellsberg was born during the Great Depression and is a hero to aging progressive baby boomers.  He is best known to them as a highly placed analyst in the RAND Corporation, a policy think tank closely associated with the United States Department of Defense.  In 1971, Ellsberg, moved by his conscience, leaked a top secret history of American involvement in Vietnam, commonly known as The Pentagon Papers.  This document revealed that the US Government was lying to its citizens about the nature of its involvement in Vietnam, and had done so consistently under four presidents from Harry Truman to Lyndon Johnson.  Ellsberg saw that the lies were continuing under a fifth president, Richard Nixon, and felt something had to be done.

Edward Snowden can best be described by those fond of labeling the generations, as a Millennial, one who came of age at or around the turn of the new millennium.  Snowden is a computer professional who had been employed by Dell and the CIA before being hired by Booz Allen Hamilton, a contractor to the National Security Agency (NSA).  In 2013, alarmed by the reach of the domestic and global surveillance apparatus, Snowden leaked classified information to the media regarding the extent to which the movements of Americans as well as foreign citizens were being tracked by the NSA.

Following these brave acts their lives took very different paths.  Both were charged under the Espionage Act of 1917, against which it is virtually impossible to mount a defense.  Through government incompetence and bad behavior, all charges against Ellsberg were dismissed.  He is a free man and a high-profile anti-war activist.  There is little prospect of this for Snowden.  While Ellsberg is revered as a hero whose actions helped to bring down the hated Richard Nixon, Snowden, in the post-9/11 surveillance state, is widely reviled by lawmakers as a traitor and a spy and is living in exile in Russia.  President Barack Obama, who so disappointed Snowden, can barely be distinguished from Nixon in his words and actions regarding this revelation.