Warren E. Burger Quotes

As to the media, they are protected by the First Amendment, as they should be.

I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.

If you don't think a television news show represents the truth, you can turn off your TV. If you don't think a magazine represents the truth, you can cancel your subscription. You have the right to expose yourself to whatever information you want. But to have the government prescribing what the truth is or limiting the information available for the citizen is contrary to the 1st Amendment.

A free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. To allow it to be fettered is to fetter ourselves.

If one seeks to disseminate his ideas by means of periodicals or pamphlets, the post-office officials may decline to transmit anything that does not suit their taste; and the courts have decided that the United States post-office has precisely the same right to refuse to carry The Masses that it has to exclude sulfuric acid and dynamite from the mails.

If the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and press is to mean anything, it must allow protests even against the moral code that the standard of the day sets for the community.

Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press.

I'm not interested in censorship. I like the First Amendment very much.

I try to do that in this book without preaching - to try to do as you just said that you really have to defend the First Amendment rights of everybody.

I think that, as Americans, we should never forget that when we tamper with freedom of speech, it is a very sensitive issue that affects all of our constitutional rights and privileges.

Our founding fathers could not have foreseen that freedom of the press might eventually be threatened just as much by media consolidation as by government.

There is no reason for the government to limit political speech.

Do we really want the FCC to conduct investigations and issue warnings to radio talk show hosts nationwide who simply discuss the important issues of our time? The Constitution says 'freedom of speech,' not 'freedom of government-approved fair speech in rationed amounts.'

The Libertarian position on the freedom of speech is a strong support of freedom of speech, and we oppose government intervention in controlling what is or is not moral.

We had a responsibility to represent all people whose 1st Amendment rights were at risk

The danger of unbounded liberty [of printing], and the danger of bounding it, have produced a problem in the science of Government, which human understanding seems hitherto unable to solve.

The Constitution does not allow the unnecessary trammeling of free expression, even for the noblest of purposes.

We do not debar Congress from all action upon the freedom of speech. Legislation that abridges that freedom is forbidden, but not legislation to enlarge and enrich it

If you care for the quality of life in our American democracy, then you have to be for censorship.

The censor is always quick to justify his function in terms that are protective of society. But the First Amendment, written in terms that are absolute, deprives the States of any power to pass on the value, the propriety, or the morality of a particular expression.

If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free..

Political speech is indispensable to decision-making in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation. By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.

When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.

You cannot prevent me from talking. I am exercising my right to free speech.

The right to free speech is critical to our democracy.