Bill of Rights Essay

I can’t forget the fact that they also provided pictures and videos. The reason why I think President was allowed to expand presidential power in this way is due to the fact that both his team and himself couldn’t a no as an answers. It was as if a teenager was denied permission to go out and jumped out of the window either way. Furthermore, because they couldn’t take a no as an answer they would clearly work their way around the case. Such as that one time when “Congress denied the authority to the president they found another way they went to the Justice Department”. I don’t really remember what it exactly said about checks and balances but I do remember that people were pissed off. People believed that it was time to have check and balances and that, the constitutional tradition of checks and balances was certainly not being respected when Brush was

In United States v Nixon, five burglars broke into the Democratic Party headquarters. After investigations, president Nixon received a subpoena ordering him to release tapes and transcripts connected to meetings between him and some individuals who had been indicted in the incident. Although the president released edited copies of the transcripts, his attorney filed a motion to quash the subpoena on grounds of executive privilege. The attorneys claim was that the judiciary lacked the powers to determine the president’s claim of executive privilege. It was held that no individual, not even the president is above the law and, therefore, the president cannot use executive privilege to withhold criminal evidence. The problem of separation of powers in this case arises from the president’s attorney that the concept of executive privilege stems from the doctrine of separation of powers and the independence of the executive insulates the president from judicial proceedings. Although the constitution provides for the separation of powers, these powers are not intended to operate independently and the assumption that the president is immune to judicial proceedings would affect the constitutional balance and impair the functionality of the judiciary. It is noteworthy that the offenses that led to the resignation of Nixon were relatively minor and the crisis was constitutional.

Ellsberg believed that Americans needed to know what was in the reports, and decided to make the Pentagon Papers public. Ellsberg broke several laws and gave copies to the New York Times, which began printing excerpts from the documents. The government immediately obtained a court order preventing the New York Times from printing more of the documents, arguing that publishing the material threatened national security. This was the first time in history that the government had successfully ordered a prior restraint on national security. Historically, prior restraint has been considered the most serious form of censorship.

In the case of New York Times Co. v. United States, a battle between the rights of the Executive branch and the right of free press took place. The Times published confidential documents that contained information contrary to what the government had reported to the people about the Vietnam War. These documents, now known as “the Pentagon Papers”, were deemed by the government to contain classified information. The six to three ruling handed down by the Justices sided with the Times and the

On September 17, 1787, the Constitution was signed into law and applied to the United States of America. Since its establishment, there have been numerous situations where the government has created laws that go against the Constitution. Importantly, the First Amendment in the Constitution protects freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. The First Amendment restricts the federal government on imposing any system of prior restraint. Prior restraint allows the government to censor material before its distribution or publication. When prior restraint is allowed, it in turn, limits 1st Amendment rights because it gives the government a right to suppress certain material. It is widely believed that the doctrine of prior restraint should only be used in rare events such as when it’s in regards to national security. But, how do we define national security? For years after the signing of the Constitution, the government has found loopholes to impose prior restraints on publications from the press because of national security.

v. United States was solely based on the concept of prior restraint. Within the Pentagon Papers, the documents enclosed information that the government was expanding the boundaries of the Vietnam War, and it’s bombings, out to Cambodia and Laos. Particular members of the government allotted the agreement to keep these files confidential. Now that Daniel Ellsberg accessed these documents, and unmasked the to New York Times, these secluded documents would become known to all. The moment it was discovered that Ellsberg exposed such obscure information, the court put out an order to halt any other publication of this information. However, concluding this case, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the decision that granted newspapers the freedom to publish the content of the Pentagon papers. This was not an easy decision for the Supreme Court to make. Not every Justice agreed that the press should be administered the freedom of publishing classified government information without withstanding some form of censorship or

With the Supreme Court case, New York Times Co. v. The United State, the Supreme Court issues a landmark decision of 6-3, authorizing the publishing companies and newspapers to print the Pentagon Papers without the threat of the government shutting them

Despite Mitchell 's letter, the New York Times declined the order and, as a result, the government got a restraining order against them so no further articles could be published (Moise 921). Because of the restraining order against the New York Times, Daniel Ellsberg went to the Washington Post and gave copies of the secret documents for them to publish on their own. When the government found out about the exchange between the Washington Post editor and Ellsberg, they informed the editor that further publishment of the Pentagon Papers would be a violation of the Espionage Laws. Despite this warning, the editor proceeded to publish articles. When the case was considered by the United States Supreme Court, the ruling was 6-3, which established a precedent that allowed publication of sensitive information, even if the government tried to mask it from the people ("The Pentagon Papers: Free- At Last" 22). Because of the New York Times v. United States court decision, the First Amendment right of freedom of press and prior restraint rights were protected by ensuring that the government generally did not have the power to limit what gets published, unless people’s lives were at stake, by depriving them of knowing information in a time of war. Prior to this ruling, First Amendment cases that involved times of war tended to favor the government. However, in cases that did not involve times of war, the Court ruled in favor of the press. The impact of this case has been to demonstrate

One Very Commodious Umbrella is a collection of short essays by award winning legal scholars about landmark United States Supreme Court cases that based their ruling on the New York Times v. Sullivan case. The Sullivan case changed American life in 1964 and continues to affect us today because of the precedent it set. The New York Times ran an advertisement that criticized the Montgomery Alabama police department. The police commissioner took offense claiming the advertisement hurt his reputation and had libeled him. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the New York Times, reasoning that the First Amendment protects the right to publish statements. This case also established that in order to prove libel, a public official must show that the statements made against him was made with actual malice, “that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard for the truth.”

Ratified December 15, 1791, Congress agreed that citizens of the United States had the right to stop the government from infringing on a person or media’s freedom of speech or the press. However, even though there have been landmark cases, such as Near v. Minnesota, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, New York Times Co. v. United States, and United States v. Manning, that have shaped how the freedom of the press clause should be applied, it has become very clear that the First Amendment does not always guard against censorship in university and college media, especially in private organizations. Based on the examination of public school freedom of the press cases in comparison to private universities freedom of the press examples, the research shows that private institutions should be allowed the same liberties that public universities and commercial publications are provided.

They concurred with the two lower courts saying that the Government can not control the release of the papers because it goes against the First Amendment, in particular freedom of press. Justice Hugo Black wrote a concurrence that directly relates to the First Amendment and the freedom of press and how the bill of rights protects that. I agree with this concurrence because it's shows how the Bill of Rights totally protects your five freedoms. However, Justice Black mentions how these may be violated if you threaten national security and the court concluded that the Pentagon Paper did not threaten national security. While watching the presentation I had some mixed feelings that changed from beginning to end. At the beginning I felt angered that the New York times was releasing these government documents. However, when I learned more about the Pentagon Paper and the case I came to an understanding that the First Amendment protects the New York Times becuase of freedom of expression. At the end of presentation I understood the decision and why the Supreme Court decided that and I no longer felt angered. Finally, I believe that it depends on the circumstances of the case if it should return to the Supreme Court. First off, if depends on the content that the newspaper companies are releasing. If they are releasing classified documents that are a threat to national

Answer: The court held that the First Amendment does in fact protect all publications, credible or not, in regard to the behavior of public officials. The exception to this is when these documents are created with the intent of actual malice, or with prior awareness that the publications are false or recklessly neglect their inaccuracy. Due to this decision, the New York Times prevailed.

It is important that the courts ruled in favor of the New York Times because if it had not, it would be undermining the entire idea of free press. This opened up something new for the press that would not have been there had this case not have happened. “Without Sullivan, investigative journalism would never have been able to uncover the U.S. role in Vietnam… or the Watergate cover-up” (TEXTBOOK). “Times v. Sullivan has had an impact on just about every free speech and free press case for the past half-century, influencing [so much but especially] how we accept debate and tolerate speech we disagree with”

The New York Times Co. V. United States case of 1971 examined the Nixon administration's prevention of the New York Times’s publication claiming that the information they were publishing the Pentagon Papers was not in the best interest of the Country.The articles in question contained studies done on the United State’s activities in Vietnam done by the Defense Department. The Supreme Court of the United States decided in a 6 to 3 vote that the United States wrongfully prevented the New York Times and Washington Post from publishing the article. The Supreme Court deemed the claim that the information was classified not viable. Nonetheless, The Supreme Court’s decision means that if the Government has enough evidence that the information that

Historically, First Amendment rights have been highly disputed in cases of national security. In 1971, the right to publish disputed information was affirmed in the landmark Pentagon Papers case. A former Defense Department employee, Daniel Ellsberg, stole a copy of a document entitled “History of U.S. Decision Making Process on Vietnam Policy,” better known as the Pentagon Papers. The documents “contained evidence on the military’s bungled handling of the Vietnam War”. Ellsberg leaked the copy to the New York Times and the Washington Post, and the Times began printing articles referring to the papers. The Nixon administration quickly ordered the Times to cease printing, arguing that publishing