The foundation of the paper carries an argument about the Pentagon papers case of 1971. Daniel Ellsberg, a defense department strategic analyst leaked the then classified pentagon papers with the help of an associate Anthony Russo to the New York Times. Pentagon papers contained a study of 47 volumes of top secret information about the United States government’s involvement in the Vietnam War prepared by the department of defense on the Vietnam War; Daniel Ellsberg worked on the study as an analyst. The Pentagon papers were photocopied and leaked to New York Times, where the news paper later published the secret information, in the form of various articles, saying that the people should be aware of what their government is doing as they believed …show more content…
And the New York Times & co. leaked confidential information without the consent of the government. As far as the understanding by research it could be deduced that Ellsberg had the intention to bring harm to the state. In august 2008 he blogged on one of the sites "Just before I decided to copy the Pentagon Papers, with Anthony's help, he made a suggestion that played a key role in my decision. Anthony did not know that the Pentagon Papers were being held at RAND … because I was under orders not to tell anyone". This clearly states that Ellsberg was given orders to keep this information a secret and knowing that he along with New York Times moved forward and unveiled the papers. When information is out it cannot be traced as to whom it could be available, which could be a threat to the national security. Hence the New York Times is guilty of leaking classified information and should be charged according to the Espionage law. Before unveiling the then classified papers New York Times did not reach out to the government, the intentions were to expose the …show more content…
The above treatment clearly indicates evidences of violation of this crucial law. The government also believed that disclosing such kind of information would raise riots in the state and trust would be lost in the government. People will not be able to understand the decisions taken by the government. Also, on the other hand political turmoil would have a negative impact on almost everything, such as the stock markets will go down, loss of foreign investors and the effect on the economy. Knowing the fact that US was in state of cold war at that moment, the whole world had formed alliances with and against the US government. The government also claimed that the revelation of the papers endangered foreign and diplomatic relationships. It would put the wrong impression on other countries about the US government’s ability to keep things as a secret. Also they worried that the information could reach the Russia and North Vietnam because of which they would then know about the tactical thinking of the US Army and could be able to predict what’s to