Freedom Of Speech

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Freedom of Speech
At the heart of the First Amendment, it is the recognition of the fundamental importance to the free flows of ideas that brings this society together as the gathering place for the world. Many people associate America as such only because of the individual freedoms that are offered, especially important is the freedom of speech, which without we cannot govern properly. Because of all the freedoms accessible to any person holding the title of citizen, they feel no oppression to what they hold important as they contribute different opinions to society as a whole, particularly criticism in non-obstructive ways.
In a democracy, there is always an existing tension between a free press and the government, between what the government claims ought to be kept confidential and what reporters believe the public ought to know.
Rarely has this conflict been clearer than in the infamous Pentagon Papers case. In 1967, the Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, ordered a full-scale evaluation of how the United States became involved in the Vietnam War. A study team of thirty-six people took more than a year to compile the report, which consisted of forty-seven volumes, with some 4,000 pages of documentary evidence and 3,000 pages of analysis. Daniel Ellsberg, a former Defense Department economist who apparently had felt so concerned about his involvement in the Vietnam tragedy that he copied major portions of the study and then turned them over to the press. On June 13, 1971, the New York Times began publishing the papers, and the Nixon administration immediately sought to stop further publication.
In Near v. Minnesota, Chief Justice Hughes had noted that the rule against prior restraint would not apply in certain cases. No one would question, Hughes declared, "that a government might prevent actual obstruction to its recruiting service or the publication of the sailing days of transports or the number and location of troops...