The battle of Midway Island was the turning point of the Pacific War. Victory at Midway was possible because the U.S. had broken the Japanese naval code. The Chicago Tribune spilled the beans in a story that ran under the headline: "NAVY HAD WORD OF JAP PLAN TO STRIKE AT SEA."
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was furious. He knew that if the Japanese read the story, they'd suspect their codes were compromised, and change them.
The president "initially was disposed to send in the Marines to shut down Tribune tower," wrote Harry Evans. "He was talked out of that, then considered trying (Chicago Tribune publisher Robert) McCormick for treason, which carried a death penalty in wartime."
A grand jury was empaneled, but prosecution was dropped because the Japanese were still using the Purple code, evidently having missed the story. The publicity from a trial would clue them in.
So Col. McCormick escaped prosecution. But with what the Chicago Tribune had done in mind, Congress in 1950 added Section 798 to the Espionage Act of 1917. It reads in part:
"Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits...or publishes ...any classified information...concerning the communications intelligence activities of the United States...shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
Section 798 applies specifically to what the New York Times did last December, when it published a story revealing that the National Security Agency was listening in on calls from al Qaida suspects abroad to people in the U.S.
Read it all here.
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