Court Opinion

ID: 9457210
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:16:00.991124+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:16.027499
License: Public Domain

J. SKELLY WRIGHT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
This is a sad day for America. Today, for the first time in the two hundred years of our history, the executive department has succeeded in stopping the presses. It has enlisted the judiciary in the suppression of our most precious freedom. As if the long and sordid war in Southeast Asia had not already done enough harm to our people, it now is used to cut out the heart of our free institutions and system of government. I decline to follow my colleagues down this road and I must forcefully state my dissent.
The executive department has sought to impose a prior restraint on publication of a series of articles by the Washington Post. The District Court refused to cooperate. Very basic constitutional principles support the District Court’s decision.
In Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 713, 51 S.Ct. 625, 75 L.Ed. 1357 (1931), Mr. Chief Justice Hughes spoke for the Supreme Court and stated that imposition of prior restraints upon publishing is “the essence of censorhip.” Id. at 713, 51 S.Ct. 625. He quoted Blackstone, the father of our common law liberties, and Madison, the father of our Constitution, to the effect that prior restraints on speech and press constitute the most heinous encroachment on our freedom. In the early days, Americans such as Madison had hoped that their country would not follow the repressive course of England. “Here, as Madison said, ‘the great and essential rights of the people are secured against legislative as well as executive ambition. They are secured, not by laws paramount to prerogative, but by constitutions paramount to laws, This security of the freedom of the press requires that it should be exempt not only from previous restraint by the Executive, as in Great Britain, but from legislative restraint also.’ ” Id. at 714, 51 S.Ct. at 630.
Under the First Amendment of our Constitution, prior restraints upon speech and press are even more serious than subsequent punishment. There is no question as to the extent of the deterrent effect. A restraining order, imposed by a court, applies directly against a particular individual or newspaper and carries very specific and very severe penalties for contempt. It is imposed before the speech at issue has even seen the light of day. As in this case, it is imposed even before the judges have read the offending material — imposed quite literally in the dark. The weapon of the prior injunction is a weapon long unused, but potentially deadly.
It is said that a temporary restraining order suppresses free speech only for a few days, and what is the hurry? That argument, in my opinion, cheapens the First Amendment. All of the presumptions must run in favor of free speech, not against it. Certainly before a prior restraint can be placed on the press, even for a short time, there must be a showing of substantial and specific injury suffi*1326cient to override strong First Amendment interests.
Thus we arrive at the key issue here. The burden is on the Government. Clearly, there are some prospective harms which might conceivably justify a prior restraint on speech or press. But those harms are very exceptional and must be very convincingly established by the party seeking an injunction. The Near Court recognized as much and said:
the protection even as to previous restraint is not unlimited. But the limitation has been recognized only in exceptional cases: * * * 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. On similar grounds, the primary requirements of decency may be enforced against obscene publications. The security of the community life may be protected against incitements to acts of violence and the overthrow by force of orderly government. The constitutional guaranty of free speech does not “protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force.”
Id. at 716, 51 S.Ct. at 631.
In this case, the executive department has made no allegations — to say nothing of convincing showings — that troop movements or recruitment are threatened. Neither obscenity nor overthrow of the government is at issue. All that is at issue is what the District Court termed “essentially historical data.” It is at least three years old and as much as twenty years old. It records the plans and policies of bygone days; it does not reveal the current plans of the present administration which, by its own account, is pursuing a different policy.
Since we are dealing with “essentially historical data,” the executive department has an even greater burden to suggest what specific sort of harm may result from its publication. Yet it seeks to suppress history solely on the basis of two very vague allegations: (1) the data has been classified as “top secret,” because (2) the data is said to adversely affect our national security. These allegations are made in completely conclu-sory fashion in the only two affidavits submitted to this court. The affidavits contain no facts whatever to support the conclusions or to specify the anticipated harms. Of course, the Government may not know precisely which documents the Post has. But it has identified the 47-volume report from which the documents are taken. The Government could suggest and support at least one specific harm that would result from publication of anything in the 47 volumes. It has not even done that.
With the sweep of a rubber stamp la-belled “top secret,” the executive department seeks to abridge the freedom of the press. It has offered no more. We are asked to turn our backs on the First Amendment simply because certain officials have labelled material as unfit for the American people and the people of the world. Surely, we must demand more. To allow a government to suppress free speech simply through a system of bureaucratic classification would sell our heritage, far, far too cheaply.
It is said that it is better to rely on the judgment of our government officials than upon the judgment of private citizens such as the publishers of the Washington Post. Again, that misses the point. The First Amendment is directed against one evil: suppression of the speech of private citizens by government officials. It embodies a healthy distrust of governmental censorship. More importantly, it embodies a fundamental trust of individual Americans. Any free system of government involves risks. But we in the United States have chosen to rely in the end upon the judgment and true patriotism of all the people, not only of the officials.
*1327This ease would seem to be a good illustration. As the District Court said, a detailed account of our initiation and prosecution of the war in Vietnam “unquestionably will be embarrassing to the United States.” But that is due to the nature of the history, not to the nature of the account. Surely, mere “embarrassment” is not enough to defeat First Amendment rights. Indeed, it may be a necessary part of democratic self-government. At a time when the American people and their Congress are in the midst of a pitched debate over the war, the history of the war, however disillusioning, is crucial. The executive department, which brought us into the war and which would be primarily “embarrassed” by publication of the material in question, must not be allowed to bury that history at such a time. Democracy works only when the people are informed.
Whatever temporary damage may come to the image of this country at home and abroad from the historical revelations in these Pentagon Papers is miniscule compared to the lack of faith in our government engendered in our people from their suppression. Suppression breeds suspicion and speculation. I suggest the truth is not nearly so devastating as the speculation following suppression. We are a mature people. We can stand the truth.
Thus, in my view, the Government faces a very great burden of justification in this case. It has sought to meet that burden with general allegations about national security and “top secret” classifications. It suggests that it may have more specific allegations, but refuses even to hint at them until we bend to its will and grant a temporary restraining, order. I refuse to act on such a basis. I believe that the Government has not met its burden — it has not even come close. In that circumstance, I feel duty and honor bound to vote to affirm the decision of the District Court.
I respectfully dissent.