To expose a nation's treachery or to protect it as a matter of national security is the dilemma facing Daniel Ellsberg when he stumbles across The Pentagon Papers.

While on his way home one evening, Walter Zarrow, a popular Columbia University philosophy professor, is violently attacked on the street. Flashing back one week to the beginning of a domino effect of events that led up to this seemingly senseless assault, the film traces hidden connections between an apparently disparate group of people.