"In August 1969, he went to a War Resisters League meeting at Haverford College in Pennsylvania and heard a speaker, Randy Kehler, proudly announce..."

"... that he was soon going to join his friends in prison for refusing the draft. Profoundly moved, Mr. Ellsberg had reached his breaking point.... 'I left the auditorium and found a deserted men’s room,' he said. 'I sat on the floor and cried for over an hour, just sobbing. The only time in my life I’ve reacted to something like that.'  Mr. Ellsberg began to oppose the war openly.... He also resigned from RAND, under pressure. With Anthony J. Russo Jr., a RAND colleague he had met in Vietnam, Mr. Ellsberg, who had a top-secret security clearance, photocopied the 47-volume Pentagon study. Still believing he could work within the system, Mr. Ellsberg in 1970 gave partial copies to Senator J. William Fulbright, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and others in Congress. All cautiously refused to act. Frustrated, disillusioned and aware that he might be committing a crime and could be sent to prison, Mr. Ellsberg approached Neil Sheehan, a veteran New York Times correspondent he had met in Vietnam, with the documents....."

From "Daniel Ellsberg, Who Leaked the Pentagon Papers, Is Dead at 92/Deeply disturbed by the accounting of American deceit in Vietnam, he approached The New York Times. The disclosures that followed rocked the nation" (NYT).

"The number of people with the security clearances to view classified material has expanded, perhaps exponentially, since the leak of the Pentagon Papers..."

"... and I wonder, aside from a few people like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, why haven’t there been more Dan Ellsbergs? Why aren’t there more people who, when presented with evidence of something that they find morally objectionable, disclose it?" 

The NYT asks Daniel Ellsberg (who is 91 and dying of pancreatic cancer). 

He answers: 

"Manning's act was that of a goofball anarchist. Snowden's, by contrast, seems to have been one of civil disobedience."

"That is, he seems to have known exactly what he was doing. Snowden does seem to have some elements of Manning, a mixed-up kid, but on balance seems to me to be more of an Ellsberg -- that is, a disillusioned insider who was appalled by what he saw and made a choice to disclose the existence of certain government programs,"  writes Thomas E. Ricks at Foreign Policy.

I have several friends who have a very different view, and think this guy is more of a Philip Agee, someone who has changed sides, and should be considered at worst a traitor and at best a self-righteous little jerk.... Leaving the country is not what a pure act of civil disobedience would entail. In addition, I find his choice of refuge, Hong Kong, a bit odd. It looks more like a defection than civil disobedience. It is possible that this guy will turn out to be more Guy Burgess than Daniel Ellsberg.

I don't see why knowing exactly what you're doing elevates you over the mixed-up goofball. How do we decide which of these characters to smile upon and which to contemn?

Daniel Ellsberg and Glenn Beck are on the same page.

I think I have just read about the man for which I have waited.Earmarks of a real hero. guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun…
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) June 9, 2013

I was just with Dan Ellsberg as he learned out about Edward Snowden. He called Snowden a hero, said he's been waiting for him for 40 years.
— Trevor Timm (@trevortimm) June 9, 2013

(Via the up-and-running Wikipedia page for Edward Snowden.)

AND: Sounds so millennialist: He is the one we've been waiting for. Just what was said about Barack Obama. There's quick turnover in messiahs these days.