Speech Restrictions Quotes
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.
For example, most of the documents that are classified as secret in the CIA are so classified because the censor thought the information might be damaging to the CIA’s interest, not the American citizen’s. However, there is a strange logic that is sometimes given to justify censoring material that would embarrass the agency: If the agency is embarrassed, public support and confidence in the agency will be eroded, and that in turn will cause investigations, reviews, and possible diminished budgets. This would be distracting from the agency’s mission of keeping Americans safe, so the public should be kept in the dark about embarrassing material.
Nixon’s views of free speech rights did not recognize the right of those who advocate revolution or government or system change in America. By his standard all of the Founding Fathers should not have been entitled to most of their early speeches. The Supreme Court repeatedly rejected his standard, distinguishing between speech to change or reform the government and illegal action to bring those changes about.
