National Security over Freedom of the Press

I would like to just start out by thanking my opponent LincolnDouglas123 for this debate. This being my first Lincoln-Douglas debate, I look forward to it. Per the rules of Lincoln-Douglas debates, I, being the affirmative, will present my arguments.Definitions:As my opponent did not offer up any definitions, I shall.National Security: the protection or the safety of a country's secrets and its citizens [1]Freedom of the Press: the right of newspapers to freely publish stories and articles [2]Valued: highly regarded or esteemed [3]With these terms defined, I will now move onto our arguments. Freedom and Safety:My case here is terse:Keeping our society safe must be our first priority. Without safety and security from foreign powers, terrorism and violence, our citizen's livelihoods would be negatively affected. If we don't value our safety, we will allow harm to fall upon our citizens. Freedom, whether it be of the press or any other type, is important for a civilization to flourish, but we shouldn't favor or value it more than safety. Why? Because it's hard to be free when you're dead. Let me give an example: Let us say there is a terrorist and the government has secret plans relating to national security that will stop him. Now, let us say that there is a newspaper who plans to publish these secrets. What should we do? If we place more value on freedom of the press, we would allow the press to publish these secrets, making the aforementioned terrorist aware of these plans. This would have obvious negative consequences and is unsound. However, If we put safety first, these plans would never become public and the terrorist would likely be captured. Here is another example: Say there was a country that posed a threat to us and we had plans to strike it. Also say there was a newspaper who prepared to publish these plans. If we valued freedom of the press more than national security, we would allow this paper to publish these plans and let the enemy know about these plans. This bring obvious negative consequences. However, if we valued national security more and we don't allow this paper to publish these plans, then the enemy would not be aware of it and our country would be safer.There are many more examples like this, but my opponent can clearly see my point. Basically, national security keeps people safe and to value it less than freedom of the press or of any kind really is to put people's lives at risk. Objection: If safety is so important, then why don't we all just surrender all of our rights to the government?There must of course be a balance between national security and freedom of the press. We wouldn't go as far as to ban newspapers, but we also wouldn't allow them to publish every single government document. We should make it so safety comes before freedom of the press; thus, our nation's secrets and plans to fight violence would be protected, but our freedom would still be preserved. The Supreme Court:The Supreme Court has traditionally said the same things I have said in this debate: National Security comes before and is more valuable than Freedom of the Press.An example of this comes from a landmark decision in Near v. Minnesota, a decision that has never been overturned. The Supreme Court ruled that the Court held that the government could not prohibit the publication of a newspaper for carrying stories that were scandalous or scurrilous. However, the court expanded on this and said that there were exceptions for prior restraint one of which being, that's right you guessed it, national security:"The objection has also been made that the principle as to immunity from previous restraint is stated too broadly, if every such restraint is deemed to be prohibited. That is undoubtedly true; the protection even as to previous restraint is not absolutely unlimited. But the limitation has been recognized only in exceptional cases. 'When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.' (Schenck v. United States). No one would question but that a government might prevent actual obstruction to its recruiting service or the publication of the sailing dates of transports or the number and location of troops." [4]Objection: But what about New York Times Co. v. United States? In that they ruled for freedom of press over national security! False. In New York Times Co. v. United States, The Court found that the government had not proved an overriding governmental interest, or an extreme danger to national security if the material were to be published. [5] If it doesn't pose a threat to national security, then let it be published. Conclusion: I have shown why national security takes precedence and holds more value than freedom of the press and how the Supreme Court concurs with my stance. The resolution is affirmed. I look forward to my opponents arguments. Sources:1. http://www.macmillandictionary.com...2. http://www.macmillandictionary.com...3. http://dictionary.reference.com...4. http://en.wikipedia.org... 5. http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com...