Technically yes, but backgrounds were so different and content of material had an impact. Snowden was a guy with computer skills who stole and began releasing information that could prove harmful to the country. Ellsberg was a marine officer who loved the marines. He was asked his favorite time in life and answered that leading an infantry company was it.
He went back to Viet Nam as a civilian and actually traveled with marines in combat. He was gung-ho but began seeing things that bothered him, false body counts, cover-ups, etc. Also the history of Viet Nam is disturbing to anyone with research skills.
He was asked to research VN and America's involvement. What he learned disturbed him. Administration after administration lied to America, padded stats, back dictators and killed thousands of innocent people. Numerous American lives were being lost and the deception continued. He tried to get people to listen but it was too entrenched, too many deaths for anyone to put it out there.
He eventually turned it over to the media. Was in right? Not within the law it wasn't but maybe he heard about a "higher authority"-itself a slippery slope-and decided the problem had to stop somewhere.