Quotes about Clear and Present Danger

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The speech at issue are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature that they present a clear and present danger that they would bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

In WWI Congress had passed a law that prohibited anyone from undermining or interfering with the war effort. The defendants had passed out anti-war literature to young men heading for military service. The court then overlooked the First Amendment and came up with a strange logic where the “clear and present danger” was the test of whether the First Amendment would apply. The anti war pamphleteers went to jail. Today, we look back on this and find it very surprising but this is yet another example of erosion of freedom and civil liberties when the nation is at war. By the 1950s, the Supreme Court had reversed itself and the First Amendment was restored to its original intent.

Alexander Meiklejohn

The Amendment might have said, “Except in times and situations involving 'clear and present danger' to the national security, Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.” Or it might have read, “Only when, in the judgment of the legislature, the interests of order and security render such action advisable shall Congress abridge the freedom of speech.” But the writers of the Amendment did not adopt either of these phrasings or anything like them.

Tom Steyer

This is not a time for “patience” — Donald Trump is not fit for office. It is evident that there is zero reason to believe “he can be a good president.” Whether by the nature of Mr. Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin and Russia, his willingness to exploit the office of the Presidency for his personal gain and treat the government like a family enterprise, his conduct during Charlottesville, his decision to pull out of the Paris climate accords, or his seeming determination to take the nation to war, he has violated the Constitution, the office of the Presidency, and the trust of the public. He is a clear and present danger to the United States of America.... Given Trump’s total lack of fitness for office, the question of impeachment becomes a very real issue ....There is no moral reason to remain silent about this. Constitutional experts ... have already laid out clear legal and historical foundations for impeachment. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, a co-author of the Federalist Papers — and an immigrant himself — argued that “high crimes and misdemeanors” could be defined as “abuse or violation of some public trust.” This president has clearly already exceeded these standards. Congress has impeached past presidents for far less.

Avigdor Lieberman

Yisrael Beiteinu has no objection to the nonviolent expression of opinion. It is violent speech that forms a clear and present danger that we refuse to tolerate.

Damian Lewis

None of us, remember, knew that 9/11 was gonna happen. We didn't live in a state of anxiety and fear about Osama Bin Laden. The CIA might have, and they failed to prevent it. But the general public didn't have any knowledge. Now we have knowledge of it, and it's a very clear and present danger in our lives.

Peter T. King

WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.

Ryan Zinke

Radical Islamic terrorists and those who fund it remain a credible threat to America and a clear and present danger to democracy.

Louis D. Brandeis

No danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is an opportunity for full discussion. Only an emergency can justify repression.

Theodore C. Sorensen

We need not renounce the use of conventional force. We will be ready to repel any clear and present danger that poses a genuine threat to our national security and survival.

Jonathan Sacks

I see in the rising crescendo of ethnic tensions, civilization clashes and the use of religious justification for acts of terror, a clear and present danger to humanity.

John Hagee

We must not allow Iran to manipulate the economy of the world because they have a nuclear weapon…. Iran is a clear and present danger to the state of Israel, the United States, and the rest of the world.

Other nations had nuclear weapons but were not regarded as threats to national and world security. The problem was that Iran was the ONLY nation which was a theocracy in which the leadership strongly advocated death (martyrdom) to defend Islam; had for years had a population that on frequent occasions publically called for “Death to the Untied States”; Iran’s President is the only national leader and member of the United Nations that has called for the obliteration of another member state—Israel; has continuous supported the worst of the non state terrorist organizations by giving them arms and money. A small nuclear bomb smuggled into the US by terrorist organizations could make 9-11 look like a minor problem.

Ban Ki-moon

The clear and present danger of climate change means we cannot burn our way to prosperity. We already rely too heavily on fossil fuels. We need to find a new, sustainable path to the future we want. We need a clean industrial revolution.

Sheldon Whitehouse

Protected free speech has boundaries, and one boundary is fraud.

John F. Kennedy

I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of "clear and present danger," the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

We admit that, in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.... The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.

In this famous case the unanimous court allowed the conviction of pacifists who wrote a pamphlet saying that the military draft was unconstitutional and wrong. The logic was that there was an immediate “clear and present danger” to the nation and therefore the usual Constitutional protections did not apply.

Larry Flynt

I used to buy into a former Supreme Court justice's argument that you can't scream fire in a crowded theater. Well, I think you can.

Clear and Present Danger Quotes