RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Ellsberg worked for the Rand Corporation as an apologist for the war effort where he became privy to classified information that the government had been lying about Viet Nam for years. He then leaked some of the information to the New York Times, who published what would become known as "The Pentagon Papers." For awhile he hid out, afraid for his life, while the Times was deciding whether to buck the government and publish. When they did publish, the government filed suit. Went all the way to the Supreme Court, who decided that once classified information was out of the bag it was fair game for any medium that didn't obtain it illegally, unless the government could make a compelling argument that national security was at risk (rather than simply the well being of officials who had been lying, and the policy they were pushing). Ultimately Ellsberg's criminal charges were defeated as well, and he has since become a major figure in the anti-war movement. Updating for EO - He was a conservative, and there is a film (he's played by James Spader) entitled The Pentagon Papers that does a pretty good job of the story, at least it jibes well with everything else I've read on the subject. At common law, you aren't committing a crime by breaking the law if the evil you are trying to prevent significantly exceeds the evil of the crime itself. The government was lying to its own people about Viet Nam from beginning to end, under Johnson and Nixon. They weren't small lies. They were huge lies. He was charged. The charges were dismissed by the appellate court. I don't remember the legal arguments involved.

Daniel Ellsberg, right wing spook (nice terminology, translated as Defense Department employee from the Johnson Administration) stole classified papers from the DD and gave them to the New York Times. While the country is engaged in a war in Vietnam (with thousands dead or dying already) against an enemy who had threatened "We will bury you" - Nikita Kruschev, 1956. Today, an absolute hero to lefties everywhere, Kennedy and Johnson's wacky liberal appointments to the US Supreme Court came back to bite Nixon in the ass, when he sought to protect the national security of the US. Are you seriously ok with a DD employee, turning over classified defense documents (directly related to an ongoing war effort) to that paragon of journalistic responsibility, the New York Times? Ellsberg, who feared for his life, did the right thing, in his mind. He was never convicted of spying, nor tried for treason. This was a chilling example of a country saying, "Well, laws are laws, but they don't apply in this case, even though they were written for exactly this case. " Nice message. Who could blame Ellsberg (though I'm not aware of his personal politics and beliefs prior to his arrival on the liberal hero's forum) for enjoying the spotlight which he enjoyed at democrat rallies, and recognizing the hatred he encountered at republican gatherings. Once he shook hands with the NY Times, I'd be pretty sure he was gonna be a liberal for the rest of his life. UPDATE; Sorry, I mis-characterized Ellsberg as an employee of the Defense Department. He was an employee of the Rand Corp, as Drum has stated. Rand, at the time was an American think-tank whose only client was the US Defense Department. He had worked previously at the Pentagon under Robert MacNamara, served in Vietnam as a civilian employed by the State Department and is a former US Marine. He copied and turned over to the NY Times 7,000 pages of top-secret, classified documents and was acquitted of all criminal charges (he's at MIT today) due to government wrong-doing in their evidence-gathering.