The constitutional issue of freedom of the press was debated constantly after the release of the Pentagon Papers. The Pentagon Papers were a series of top secret documents that were only supposed to be seen by members of the federal government. However, these documents were leaked to the New York Times and Washington Post thanks to Daniel Ellsberg.
These papers showed that the American government had been lying to the citizens about the progress being made in the Vietnam War. These documents were supposed to be classified, however these newspapers published them in their newspapers anyways. This resulted in the battle between freedom of the press and the ability of the government to keep documents classified from the American public. <span />
