Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. ~~First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Those words are a portion of one of the most important documents in America’s history, the Bill of Rights. Within this document are civil rights and liberties, which afford the citizens of the United States freedoms and rights that cannot be removed. However for all its virtues this manuscript is somewhat ambiguous. Along with this ambiguity comes the debate over whether or not certain bits of this immortal text should be taken less literally.

One of these pieces belongs to the ideals of the first amendment “freedom . . . of the press.” Ideally freedom of the press is the liberty to print or to otherwise distribute information, in print, by broadcasting, or through electronic media, without prior restraints such as licensing requirements or content review and without later punishment for what is said. Freedom of the press, which has been limited not only by gove

In its petition to the court, the executive branch of the government argued that it should be the only judge of national security needs and ought to be granted a court order to implement their position. In return, the newspaper complained that this would violate First Amendment press freedoms guaranteed to the people under the U.S. Constitution. It also was also argued that the real government motive was political censorship rather than protection of national security.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. One analyst, Jeffrey A. Smith, attributes censorship of sensitive materials in wartime “by the congress and the president . . . [to] a peculiar mixture of politics and paranoia.” (75) While it makes sense for the government to want to censor troop movements, it may be safe to say that they can become a little overbearing and want to censor everything. They seem to be taking too many precautions in favor of national security. So in reality the dispute becomes national security versus the public’s right to know.

Historically, restriction of the press has occurred in two ways. The first may be either censorship or mandatory licensing by the government in advance of publication; the second is punishment for printed material, especially that considered by the government to be seditious libel, or, material that may “excite disaffection against constituted authority.”

Kara Corrente Fleischer, the move to clamp down on presidential records will result in freer dissemination of information. How that could be possible is difficult to understand.

Freedom of the press arouses much debate. This is one topic that tends to be questioned a great deal. Although it is very important for the public to know what is going on in our country, sometimes it may be better not to know. For example when the press wanted to print the Pentagon Papers it was considered, by some, to be a threat to our national security.

Some topics in this essay:
Bill Rights, Littleton Colorado, Jeffrey Smith, Amendment Constitution, Pentagon Papers, Department Justice, Decency Act, Times United, Censorship It’s, Richard Nixon, national security, freedom press, pentagon papers, york times, supreme court, press freedom, bush administration, executive branch government, freedom amendment, signed president, former president's, publication pentagon papers,