Pentagon Papers Case

US Supreme Court decision (New York Times v. US; US v. Washington Post) of 1971 dealing with the right of the federal government to enjoin the publication of sensitive or classified material. The federal government filed the suit against the Times and the Post to discontinue publication of portions of ‘The Pentagon Papers,’ a set of classified documents about US involvement in Vietnam. The government argued that the threat to national security warranted the infringement on First Amendment rights. The Court ruled 6 to 3 to dismiss the government's suit, judging any suppression of the press, without proof of actual damage to national security, to be a violation of the First Amendment.