<P> The case prompted Harold Edgar and Benno C. Schmidt Jr. to write an article on espionage law in the 1973 Columbia Law Review . Their article was entitled "The Espionage Statutes and Publication of Defense Information". Essentially they found the law to be poorly written and vague, with parts of it probably unconstitutional . Their article became widely cited in books and in future court arguments on Espionage cases . </P> <P> United States v. Dedeyan in 1978 was the first prosecution under 793 (f) (2) (Dedeyan' failed to report' that information had been disclosed). The courts relied on Gorin v. United States (1941) for precedent . The ruling touched on several constitutional questions including vagueness of the law and whether the information was "related to national defense". The defendant received a 3 - year sentence . </P> <P> In 1979--80, Truong Dinh Hung (aka David Truong) and Ronald Louis Humphrey were convicted under 793 (a), (c), and (e) as well as several other laws . The ruling discussed several constitutional questions regarding espionage law, "vagueness", the difference between classified information and "national defense information", wiretapping and the Fourth Amendment . It also commented on the notion of bad faith (scienter) being a requirement for conviction even under 793 (e); an "honest mistake" was said not to be a violation . </P> <P> Alfred Zehe, a scientist from East Germany, was arrested in Boston in 1983 after being caught in a government - run sting operation in which he had reviewed classified U.S. government documents in Mexico and East Germany . His attorneys contended without success that the indictment was invalid, arguing that the Espionage Act does not cover the activities of a foreign citizen outside the United States . Zehe then pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 8 years in prison . He was released in June 1985 as part of an exchange of four East Europeans held by the U.S. for 25 people held in Poland and East Germany, none of them American . </P>

What did the espionage act (1917) and the sedition act (1918) do