By Cliff Montgomery – Aug. 18th, 2013
Many people, in this country and around the world, are deeply concerned about the Obama Administration’s drive to punish U.S. government whistleblowers. We at the Spark believe that a particular moment in American history might inform the discussion.
During an earlier Spark article which discussed Obama’s drive for greater federal secrecy, we mentioned “The Pentagon Papers.” We felt it an important comparison to current matters. The press release of those federal documents in the early 1970s – against the wishes of the U.S. government – helped change Americans’ understanding of the Vietnam War.
At the time, it also resulted in legal charges being leveled at the whistleblowers. Daniel Ellsberg, a former U.S. military analyst chiefly responsible for the press leaks, was accused of 12 felony counts. These charges included a supposed violation of the Espionage Act – the exact charge for which Bradley Manning recently was found guilty.
The New York Times in the early ‘70s received an injunction from the U.S. government to cease further publication of Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers – that injunction went to the Supreme Court.
The Washington Post at that time also found itself under the threat of a possible injunction. But U.S. District Judge Murray Gurfein threw out the government’s request, declaring:
“The security of the Nation is not at the ramparts alone. Security also lies in the value of our free institutions. A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, an ubiquitous press, must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know.
The feds appealed the judge’s decision on the Post, and the Supreme Court agreed to consider the case along with The New York Times injunction.
In 1971, the Court in this case ruled against the U.S. government. The New York Times quickly released a book which contained all the Pentagon Papers published by the newspaper.
Near the end of the eye-opening book, Times reporters Neil Sheehan, Hedrick Smith and others wrote a thoughtful note on the Supreme Court decision which sorely needs to be heeded today:
The decision of the Supreme Court allowing the Times and other newspapers to continue to publish hitherto secret Pentagon documents on the Vietnam War is in our view less important as a victory for the press than as a striking confirmation of the vitality of the American democratic form of government.
[… T]he outcome of this case is a landmark for the press in its centuries-old battle against the efforts of Governmental authority to impose prior restraints. But we believe its real meaning goes deeper than that, in the context of the present time and place.
We believe that its more profound significance lies in the implicit but inescapable conclusion that the American people have a presumptive right to be informed of the political decisions of their Government and that when the Government has been devious with the people, it will find no constitutional sanction for its efforts to enforce concealment by censorship.
