Branzburg v. Hayes was the only ever supreme court case to deal with reporter’s privilege. The ruling of this case was that reporter’s had no right to hide their sources in a court case. The chief justice at the time,Warren Burger, made a point that reporters, “like other citizens, [must] respond to relevant questions put to them in the course of a valid grand jury investigation or criminal trial (Fargo,2010).” With a decision that was five for and four against, this case was not an open and shut many thought it to be. Calling into play a look at the first amendment and what it really means when it says the freedom of speech. Interpreting a document that is more than two hundred years old is not an easy task to accomplish, having to combine…
Reasoning: Justice Hughes acknowledges that there are limits to freedom of the press, however, any constitutional restraints can only be imposed in very special and extreme circumstances such as obscenity or the obstruction of the war effort. In this case the Judge ruled that there were no such vital threats at risk. The judge ruled that the most important freedom of the press in the right to operate without prior censorship.…
As of today i didn't really know all this about Lincoln, now knowing all this Lincoln is no justified in prosecuting the war the way he did, that the only beneficial thing that came out of this war even for his own benefits was the freedom of many slaves, which they are human beings, and knowing the worse was the many slave that die because they were the one in combat was a disaster. Is very in human to see how people use power to get what they want not caring about the harm that will cause others. Like the professor says,"he didn’t fight the war to free the slaves. Instead, he freed some of the slaves to help fight the war." all Lincoln did was to be beneficiary of doing that, and by doing that he already had all the slaves on his side, cause…
For anyone to place a limit on an American's right to express or suspend one's right's, is to be very dubious in being an American themselves! "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties." (John Milton, 1644) in that quote, Senator Robert M. La Follette uses it to defend his right to speak out against the war. Furthermore, for the right for the citizens of this country to discuss issues without fear.…
Faith in the magnitude of a press free of governmental control has stayed stable right through American history. America’s Founding Fathers affirmed the fundamental right of citizens to be informed about all sides of an issue without governmental interference. Thomas Jefferson even went so far as to write: “If it were left to me to decide whether we should have a government without a free press or a free press without a government, I would prefer the latter.” (The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, 2009). It is the reason why, among other things, the United States has no ministry of information to regulate the activities of journalists, no requirement that journalists be registered; and no requirement that they be members of a union. The First Amendment states,…
The freedom of press provides people to freely present all of their ideas and opinions without any restrictions. It lets people put out their different beliefs, even if it opposes with the majority. The freedom of press allows people to see opinions that may differ from their own but it also lets them see opinions that they might agree with. Tocqueville writes, “every citizen must be presumed to possess the power of discriminating between the different opinions of his cotemporaries, and of appreciating the different facts from which inferences may be drawn” (Tocqueville 149). People are supposed to acknowledge ideas and beliefs that differ from their own, because that is the best way to ensure that their original belief is the strongest.…
There is now significant government censorship of the media’s war coverage as a result of Vietnam…
Overall, as Roger Rosenblatt stated and explained in his article defending the freedom of speech, the United States must not procreate censorship of any greater extent on its citizen’s voices. In fact, “The Founding Fathers…
In The Decline of American Press Freedom by Anne Applebaum, polish journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner, she wrote about how America’s freedom of press is being censored by corporations and the government. Companies and other governments have been banning certain articles from reaching certain their citizen’s media and other countries. For example, a journalist named Scott Anderson wrote an article called Vladimir Putin’s Dark Rise to Power. The article is about a theory of the Russian government setting off explosions in Moscow in the year 2000 killing their own citizens and blaming it on Chechen Republic terrorists to gain support for a second Chechen war. This article was banned by their government and a publishing company from everywhere…
The main focus of the government during wartime is winning the war, it makes sense that the government would want to keep ideas that may cause problems for the war effort to the minimum. While it does rub people the wrong way to have their rights reduced, it is necessary for the government to want to win a war. Opposing the war effort may lead to more casualties than supporting the draft. Therefore, rights should be limited during times of war because the danger that some forms of speech create can be a cause for concern.…
Freedom of speech was granted to Americans in the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This freedom can be in the form of a peaceful protest or even a remark against the government. Without freedom of speech, it would be as though America had a dictatorship and no individual could speak of what they wished. Likewise, Americans would never rise up against what they did not agree with. Throughout American history freedom of speech has played a tremendous part in shaping the fundamentals of this nation. During the civil rights movement in the 1960’s, many civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King used their freedom of speech privilege to protest the many injustices they faced. Without these memorable protests, this country may still be a segregated nation. Freedom of press allows newspapers and television, as well as other forms of broadcasts, to say whatever they wish as long as it is reality. During presidential elections, candidates cannot hide from the press. Every flaw is shown to American public so that they can make their own judgment with all the facts provided.…
The Founding Fathers included the right of freedom of the press in the First Amendment in order to ensure the spread of intellectual, and typically liberal, ideas among the citizens, just as was done in order to inspire the revolution. This freedom’s intrinsic part of the the birth of America, its changing interpretations by the citizens and the courts, and the public nature of the press itself have made this First Amendment right prominent in the evolution of the nation as well as a constant topic of debate throughout U.S. history.…
There are many situations which sit on the line of right and wrong . The press holds the responsibility to inform the people of the news whether it is logical or not. The Government imposes restrictions despite the apparently absolute nature of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which states "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Keeping this in mind gives any journalist the right to write, print, or speak about any thing.…
In times of war there are many different opinions expressed by the people of the country. Some people would support the decision of war, while some people would strongly agree with the concept of war. The question is, is there a limit to what is allowed and is not allowed when discussing opinions of war. In June 1917 Congress passed the Espionage Act, and in May 1918 it passed the Sedition Act. Under this act any individual could be fined up to $10,000, and be sentenced to 20 years in jail for interfering with the war effort or for saying anything disloyal, profane, or abusive about the government or the war effort. The problem with these laws was that they violated the First Amendment. It ended up leading to over 2,000 prosecutions for loosely defined antiwar activities, and over half of them resulted in convictions. Any newspaper or magazine that opposed the war or made fun of or criticized the war effort would lose their mailing privileges. Another occurrence regarding this Act was when The House of Representatives refused to seat Victor Berger, a socialist congressman from Wisconsin, because of his antiwar views. Another example was when Columbia University fired a distinguished psychologist because he opposed the war. The Espionage and Sedition Acts targeted socialists and labor leaders. Eugene V. Debs was handed a ten-year prison sentence for speaking out against eh war and the draft. The anarchist Emma Goldman received a two-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine for organizing the No Conscription…
In Britain public outrage over the hacking of people's mobile-phone voicemail messages, by investigators hired by newspapers, continues to grow. At first it was the royal family and celebrities whose messages were found to have been intercepted. As the number of cases multiplied, the News of the World, the Sunday tabloid at the centre of the scandal, found it ever harder to maintain its line that just one “rogue reporter” was to blame. Now, to widespread disgust, there are reports that the messages of murdered schoolgirls, and of victims of the 2005 terrorist attacks in London, may also have been intercepted. On Thursday, as advertisers continued to desert the tabloid, its owners, News International, announced that it would be closed down.…