<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> U.S. Const . amend . I </Td> </Tr> <P> New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on the First Amendment . The ruling made it possible for The New York Times and The Washington Post newspapers to publish the then - classified Pentagon Papers without risk of government censorship or punishment . </P> <P> President Richard Nixon had claimed executive authority to force the Times to suspend publication of classified information in its possession . The question before the court was whether the constitutional freedom of the press, guaranteed by the First Amendment, was subordinate to a claimed need of the executive branch of government to maintain the secrecy of information . The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did protect the right of The New York Times to print the materials . </P> <P> Section 793 of the Espionage Act was cited by Attorney General John N. Mitchell as cause for the United States to sue to bar further publication of stories based upon the Pentagon Papers . The statute was spread over three pages of the United States Code Annotated and the only part that appeared to apply to the Times was 793 (e), which made it criminal for: </P>

In the case involving the pentagon papers the supreme court ruled that censorship was
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