The New York Times’ publication of the Pentagon Papers showed the paper was willing to jeopardize connections to other powerful institutions, including the government, to serve the public interest.
Spy cases are rare. More typically, as in the Trump indictment, the act applies to the unauthorized gathering, possessing or transmitting of certain sensitive government information.
Two national security law experts explain how the Espionage Act isn’t only about international intrigue, and share other important points about the law that was invoked in a search of Trump’s estate.
Gordon Adams, American University School of International Service
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US Afghanistan pullout is not a repeat of failures in other recent wars. “This is not Saigon,” he said. A seasoned foreign policy expert disagrees.
Press-bashing was a feature of the years Trump was president. But a new, more constructive kind of press criticism has also emerged that aims to improve journalism, not delegitimize it.
When a person or agency backed by the power and resources of the government tells a lie, it sometimes causes harm that only the government can inflict.
Gordon Adams, American University School of International Service
US officials have consistently lied over decades about progress in the Afghanistan war. The lies are no surprise, writes a foreign affairs scholar – but they have profound consequences.
Julian Assange’s indictment under the Espionage Act, a sweeping law with heavy penalties for unauthorized receiving or disclosing of classified information, poses a threat to press freedom.
The US indicted WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange for conspiring to hack into a government computer. But the prosecution of Assange may also pose a risk to the rights of journalists in the US.
An expert argues why the anonymous op-ed in The New York Times can hardly be considered an act of civil disobedience and why it might make things even worse in the Trump administration.