THE WAY WE SAW IT
THE WAY WE SAW IT The following are excerpts from articles and editorials published by The Progressive since its founding on January 9, 1909. They have been edited only to achieve brevity. Unless...
...We also know from the speeches of the Founding Fathers that the First Amendment was specifically designed to prevent restraint of publication — what the lawyers call "prior restraint" — because the English kings had used this device to quash political opposition...
...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press____" The language is very simple...
...But without publicity and debate there is no redress...
...Yet we had prior restraint in the Pentagon Papers case for the first time since King George...
...Senator J. W. Fulbright September 1971 Prior restraint The First Amendment to the Constitution says that "Congress shall make no law...
...An ill-conceived war, once recognized as such by the people and their representatives, must eventually be brought to an end...
...August 1971 Classified In the campaign of 1960, the Defense Department made available to the Democrats, in a not unusual fashion, classified information showing the existence of a "missile gap" which did not exist...
...I am not saying the people who prepared these things didn't do so in good faith...
...it is the indispensable condition for their perpetuation...
...The 'national security' tent Under the guise of "national security," vast areas of the public's business — including virtually the entire scope of military and foreign affairs — have been removed from public scrutiny...
...It just puts a seal on it...
...In the Defense Department alone, six million cubic feet of filing space are crammed with about twenty million classified documents — including newspaper clippings stamped Top Secret and "sensitive" papers pertaining to the Spanish-American War...
...Secrecy not only perpetuates mistaken policies...
...A retired Pentagon security expert told Congress recently that less than one-half of 1 per cent of the classified material contains information that might justify its being kept secret...
...But the very fact the information is limited and classified often makes it erroneous, and the fact that it is classified has nothing to do with whether or not it is accurate or true...
...The words are, "No law...
...Totalitarian devices such as military surveillance of civilians cannot long survive in the full light of publicity...
...He estimated the cost of the classification system at $50 million a year...
...Richard Goodwin June 1969 Danger of secrecy Secrecy and subterfuge are themselves more dangerous to democracy than the practices they conceal...
...Unless an author's name is appended, the material was editorial comment...
...Neil Sheehan July 1972...
Vol. 43 • May 1979 • No. 5
