To be fair, the key difference is that these guys got away with it. If they hadn't, I hope they'd have the level of notoriety and support Snowden and Manning have had. But I agree that it would be better to focus on the facts and issues rather than the individuals involved.
> To be fair, the key difference is that these guys got away with it.
The other difference is that "these guys" didn't do anything else but find the evidence they needed to prove the types of spying the FBI was up to.
It's not as if they copied out all of the FBI file cabinets and only then revealed evidence of spying, along with disclosing lists of known Soviet spies under watch by the FBI.
