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Pentagon Papers Vs Wikileaks

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WikiLeaks and the Pentagon Papers WikiLeaks has been most commonly compared to the 1971 Pentagon Papers case (New York Times Company v. United States). In this case, the Nixon Administration tried to prevent the New York Times and the Washington Post (United States v. Washington Post Co.) from publishing documents and other classified materials pertaining to United States activities in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The administration said that further publication of the papers would be "inimical to the national interest" (Rudenstein 4), and that prior restraint was necessary for the protection of national security (not dissimilar to what has been said about the WikiLeaks documents). However, the Court decided against the Nixon Administration, ultimately ruling in favor of the New York Times, and agreeing that the government had not "overcome the 'heavy presumption against' prior restraint of the press" ("New York Times Company v. United States"). They also said that the use of the …show more content…

The Pentagon Papers were carefully selected documents chosen for release because they told a coherent story about the war. They included high-level analysis from Pentagon and other high-ranking government officials and showed that the government had been intentionally misleading the public (or at least not giving all the information) about the war in Vietnam. WikiLeaks released thousands of documents without a specific narrative in mind. Some of the documents were potentially harmful, others were just embarrassing and showed that the U.S. was unprepared for war. Most of the documents did not include important analysis, but rather were first-person accounts from people on the ground. And the WikiLeaks documents do not show important differences between what the government is telling the people about the War on Terror and what it is saying behind closed doors (Farhi

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United States v. Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United Stater, et al. was a landmark US Supreme Court case. Nixon was brought to trial on Jul 8, 1974 and the case was decided July 24, 1974. The final decision was an unanimous 8-0, decided by the Burger Court. In June 1972, five people were arrested inside the Democratic Party's offices in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Later it was discovered that the intruders may have been employed by the Republican Party and they could've been trying find information that would have helped elect the incumbent President.

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officials ended up lying to the public” (Zinn 477). While this case alone sufficiently proves that the U.S. government uses any threat that it comes across with and labels them as “massive threats” in order to get a substantial amount of people to agree with the increase of military supplies, another report in Zinn's book shows why even false threats are important and still valuable to the gain in increasing military supplies (Zinn, 477). Even though the Tonkin affair was proved and cased as a wrongful action, that did not stop them from sending troops into Vietnam and declaring war on the Vietnamese having over 200,000 American soldiers sent to South Vietnam and 200,000 the year

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Official reports were being covered up to conceal what was really happening. Document 9 states " after the war, the pentagon papers were released- classified document which proved the massive amount of lying the government had done in

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The decision of the Supreme Court case Hamdi v. Rumsfeld was important in deciding the amount of power the United States’ government has during wartime and national crises. The case debated between actions necessary in order to protect the nation and the guaranteed rights and liberties granted by the 5th and 14th Amendments in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the case was set to discuss whether a United States citizen, accused of treason as an “enemy combatant,” had the right of due process of law guaranteed by the constitution (O’Connor, 2004). These Amendments are placed to protect each citizen’s civil liberties.

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The Constitution was set in place as rules to protect the people. Even the first three words of the Constitution state “We the People”, which affirms that the government was created by the people for the people, not against. If the government had decided to release this information to the public back in the ‘60s, riots would have erupted, and change would

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The Supreme Court stated that the government 's limit on freedom of speech invades the right of the First Amendment. Therefore, possible additional publication of the Pentagon Papers did not grab attention considerably or influence the United States negatively at all. Consequently, the Pentagon Papers case was a trace of a pivotal example existing for advocating freedom of the press because it was included in freedom of speech. The New York Times published the report, but the government wanted to make it unknown to public because of possible harm to national security and war efforts in Vietnam. As a result, it attempted to stop the Times and the Post from publishing their articles.

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The U.S. government’s announcement of the bombing of North Vietnam was also opposed by the report. By June 1971, The New York Times began to publish front-page articles containing the information found in the Pentagon Papers. After The New York Times published their third article, the United States Department of Justice decided to get a temporary restraining order on any future publications. A well-known court case, the New York Times Company v. United States, caught the attention of the Supreme Court. The Times and the Washington Post allied together to fight for the right of publication.

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And also in the book “63 Documents the government Doesn’t Want you to read” has some of the documents that have also been blanked out in certain parts of it, maybe also this book is considered as threat to the national security like “Operationq1. This is a type of censorship, and proof of how we do not actually have freedom of speech. One of the “classified” documents that was leaked was an assassination plan.

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Now, the American public was not frantic about the crucial secret that was being held from them, on the contrary they understood that it a critical step that had to be taken in order to ensure social security. Another example, would be J.F.K’s assassination files that were release fifty-four years after the former president’s death. The content in those files could range from of eye witness testimonies to suspect of the attack. The documents were in hold for this long because the FBI and CIA thought it be better to have a period of time to go over each piece of evidence before disclosing it to the public audience. The American society has been censor from this information for long period of time for the good of the nation.

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In the mid-sixteenth century, the religious reformation was led by Luther and his 95 theses as well as the Diet of Worms in the Germanic states. From this reformation, peasants sparked an uprising against the German land-owning nobility and the aristocracy. The tension between the oppressed peasants and influential Germanic aristocracy caused an aggressive response, tabulating another blow for the peasantry and their newfound Lutheran ideals. In 95 Theses, Luther mentions the error in the giving of indulgences within the church system.

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In 1971, The New York Times gained copies of the Pentagon Papers, which contained government information on the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. The New York Times wanted to publish these papers in their newspaper, but the United States district court in New York followed a request that was issued by the government and told the New York Times to legally put a hold on publishing the papers. The court put a hold on publishing the papers because they thought if the papers were published, it would put the citizens of the United States in harm's way. The New York Times appealed the court's decision and took their case to the Supreme Court. They argued that the New York state court could not put the papers on hold from being published due to the First Amendment which allows freedom of the press.

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