October 4, 2012 Daniel Ellsberg, was the person who released the Pentagon Papers to the public because the United States involvement of the Vietnam War and also there were many secrets that government officials were not allowing the public to know. Ellsberg’s career began when he entered the marines in 1954 and he started to deliver lectures at Harvard as a junior member board; during that particular time Henry Kissinger took notice to Ellsberg rational lectures. Ellsberg soon began to work as a strategic analyst in the Santa Monica office of the RAND Corporation. The RAND Corporation was the beginning of an opportunity, unbeknown to Ellsberg having clearances to top secret information – would eventually lead him to the release of the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg became involved in the Vietnam War in 1965. “ I had accepted the official answer,….namely that there was a civil war going on, that we had a right to intervene and pick one side or the other.” Ellsberg, like many Americans in the U.S had trusted and believe that their government would guide them right for the U.S involvement in Vietnam. In 1967, Ellsberg became more concerned by the continuing violence of the war and how the U.S continued to brainwash the public through the media that the war was for the right cause. “The programs we were pursuing had no chance of succeeding. We’re not in any way proceeding as people thought they were back in Washington.” At this point Ellsberg felt the U.S should end the brutal war with Vietnam. Soon afterward an amazing opportunity was presented to him, Halperin and Gelb asked Ellsberg to join the staff of the Pentagon Papers project. A year later, Ellsberg’s attitude and opinion regarding the war continued to increase drastically. I strongly believe, Ellsberg conversation with an Indian woman also increased his questioning of the war and the killing of Martin Luther King. “When my life started to change”: all of these, as well as other factors suggest a set of beliefs and attitudes that were in the midst of intense and radical change.” Ellsberg started to believe there was no win option in Vietnam and four years of bombing in the Vietnam did not bring unity or closure. Ellsbergs’ six- month study of the Pentagon created such a huge impact in his life and the results had him thinking that no American President had the courage to end the war. “The decisions year after year were to continue the war and the pattern of behavior went far beyond any one president.” The factors that led Ellsberg to make the Pentagon Papers public was the issue over Nixon administration efforts to end the war, but Nixon administration did not attempt to try and this caused Ellsberg to become alarm and inform the public. The fact that the Nixon administrations were misleading the public gave Ellsberg the sense of urgency to become the solitary to alert the public to the truth. In the end, it was great to see Ellsberg ensure the Pentagon Papers become vital information for all to be aware of. The First Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights which grants the people of the United States of America the freedom of religion, abridging the freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In the beginning when the First Amendment began, the Amendment applied to laws created by the Congress. When Gitlow v. New York case happened, the Supreme Court appointed the First Amendment to each state. When the situation of protecting state secrets is brought up, many people have different perspective on this issue. American citizens trust their government they place in power and there should not be any secrets that government officials hide from the public and media publication should not face consequences because they release state information to the public. The United States v. the New York Times and the Washington Post became an huge case because both of these publications published contents of a State secret “History of U.S Decision- Making Process on Viet Nam Policy.” Justice Black’s view on this case was that the government’s case against the Washington Post should have been dismissed, but the New York Times’ case should have been vacated. “I believe that every moment’s continuance of the injunctions against these newspapers amounts to a flagrant, indefensible, and continuing violation of the First Amendment,” Justice Black said. One sentence that best expresses Justice Black opinion was when he stated it is unfortunate that Brennan and Douglas apparently are willing to hold the publication of news in trouble and how such a holding would make a shambles of the First Amendment. I agree with Justice Black because the New York Times and the Washington Post did nothing wrong and this case makes me wonder why the government would want to hide vital information. Justice Douglas believed that “First Amendment provides that Congress shall make no law…That leaves, in my view, no room for governmental restraint on the press.” Justice Douglas’ view was that the publications were in the wrong and should not publish material that can question the credibility of the government. “I think there can be but one answer to this dilemma, if dilemma it be. The responsibility must be where the power is.” Justice Stewart said. Stewart’s views were different from Black and Douglas because Stewart felt the publications were not to blame for the release of the documents, but the main source who release the document to the publications. “For this reason it is perhaps here that a press that is alert, aware, and free most vitally serves the basic purpose of the First Amendment.” Stewart believes that is the job of publication because they have freedom of press and should not face punishment which would void their Amendment right. Stewart made a valued point because media publications are supposed to keep the public inform on issues that are negative or positive, especially with Amendment rights to support the press. Mr. Chief Justice Burger felt the events in the case had happened because the First Amendment had created that kind of rights. Mr. Justice Harlan felt that the court has been almost irresponsibly feverish in dealing with these cases and the train of events took place in the name of the presumption which was created by the First Amendment. Julian Assange is an editor-in-chief and spokesman for Wikileaks; Assange and Wikileaks became the focus of a global debate because the release of thousands of confidential information regarding the wars in Iraq and Afganistan and the conduct of American diplomacy around the world. Wikileaks made the documents on Iraq and Afghanistan available to the New York Times and the Guardian. Assange denied the accusations of releasing the information and suggested that they are part of a global conspiracy to silence him. Ellsberg and Assange had many similar beliefs, one of their reasoning to release secret information because they both felt the public should have knowledge of the cover up information their trusted government was hiding from them. The similarities that both faced for releasing the documents was the government felt they were threat to national security. Ellsberg was a respected man and he had clearance to access important information; whereas, Assange was a former hacker from Australia and he used Wikileaks to show leak information of companies and governments that were doing things they were not supposed to. The difference of Ellsberg was that he disagreed with a war that his country was in and he used his own clearance to release documents and he was willing to pay the price for his country. The difference of Assange was that he would seek people with clearance to violate their clearance and submit anything to Wikileaks. Assange used extortion and threats to keep himself from being prosecuted and he was willing to get others killed by releasing information he obtained illegal. The release of the Pentagon Papers helped build public sentiment for the end of the war and led to Ellsberg’s indictment, which was later dismissed in court. The release of the Wikileak documents caused chained protesters who were at the White House, to support Assanage’s decision and to protect the civil rights of Assange.

Citation http://topics.nytimes.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/