Gott nytt år!

Jag har för övrigt ägnat några av årets sista timmar åt att läsa ett rättsfall av år 1971 från US Supreme Court: US v. The New York Times m.fl.

Rättsfallet handlar om huruvida den amerikanska regeringen (Nixonadministrationen) skulle ha rätt att förhindra tidningarna The New York Times och The Washington Post från att publicera "Pentagon-handlingarna". Majoriteten av domarna menade att fri press, enligt konstitutionens första tillägg, var överordnad sekretess med hänsyn till nationens säkerhet och att staten hade en tung bevisbörda för att motivera sekretessen.

För att i några stycken citera domare Black ur domen:

"The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell."


"The word "security" is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic. The Framers of the First Amendment, fully aware of both the need to defend a new nation and the abuses of the English and Colonial governments, sought to give this new society strength and security by providing that freedom of speech, press, religion, and assembly should not be abridged."

"The greater the importance of safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free [403 U.S. 713, 720]   assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic, the very foundation of constitutional government." 

Rättsfallet lär vara högaktuellt med tanke på Wikileaks verksamhet i yttrandefrihetens och demokratins tjänst, för de upplysta.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=403&invol=713