NationStates Jolt Archive

I dont know about you, but I think this little ammendment needs some ammending, consdiering it seems like 'the press' can get away with anything short of murder by acting like their doing it for 'freedom of information'. Im sure you've all seen various celeberties, convicts and so forth being taken to a car by a bodyguard/police officer while being mobbed by the press, having assorted sound recording instruments shoved into their faces and so forth.
I think that, even for criminals, this is going too far.
IMO, somebody needs to put up a fence or something. Not a high one, but one that keeps assorted reporters and cameramen from mobbing whoever theyre trying to get an interview with. And possibly a guy standing by with a decible meter and a stungun.
Likewise with the 'papperazzi' types that basicaly stalk famous people, I think they should all be shot. Freedom of the press ends on when I do not arrange an event or get caught doing something 'naughty'. My private life is no buisness of the publics and I dont care if Im famous, the soap brand I use can be found on MTV between 3 AM and 6 PM, because the company bought commercial time there and Im in the ad.

End random rant.

The press violates privacy more than any government agency. Families suffering from terrible ordeals are mobbed by these parasites who only care about getting their stories. I think the press should be free unless:

1. Their actions violate the law, or allow someone else to do so with impunity (like refusing to reveal sources in the CIA leak)

2. Their actions violate a clearly defined right to privacy as established by revising the amendment.

Another point I forgot to make is that occasionaly they actually HELP criminals and such.
EX:
The Green River Killer in Oregon I think, famous murder who killed a whole bunch of people. The police, under the advice of a psychologist, staked out the crime scenes and waited. The press got word of this, and STARTED TO BROADCAST LIVE VIDEO OF THE STAKEOUTS.
I think this is the right time to use an emoticon.
:headbang:

Well, it gives them the power to do so to the government officials themselves. So I'm happy with it.

Well, it gives them the power to do so to the government officials themselves. So I'm happy with it.
"The Press shall not violate the privacy of any except those who violate the privacy of others"?

How about Vietnam? The press was pretty helpful there, too. Really made the troops feel better. (sarcasm)

Yeah, certain stuff most definately shouldn't be reported on; for instance, troop movements.

The press needs to be free
But I think that those found violating or endangering people need to suffer the consequences.

There should be clear marked out rules (with leeway clearly defined) on what the press can and can not do (including privacy laws and private property laws) and make them VERY liable if they cross those agreed upon rules

The press needs to be free
But I think that those found violating or endangering people need to suffer the consequences.

There should be clear marked out rules (with leeway clearly defined) on what the press can and can not do (including privacy laws and private property laws) and make them VERY liable if they cross those agreed upon rules
those lines would be very difficult to define.

As I gather my thoughts on how best to explain the importance of a free press and on at least maintaining the current balance of interests between a free press and other concerns, let me share part of a post from another thread -- as it is relevant to much of what is being said here.

As for the idea that reporting should be restricted in relation to national security, such an idea is contrary to our nation's ideas and true security. Freedom is not weakness.

This is one of those issues on which I cite the US Supreme Court, not because of its authority, but because of the soundness of its reasoning and the eloquence of its opinion: New York Times v. United States (http://laws.findlaw.com/us/403/713.html ), 403 US 713 (1971):

Mr. Justice Black, with whom Mr. Justice Douglas joins, concurring:
...
In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. 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. ...

[W]e are asked to hold that despite the First Amendment's emphatic command, the Executive Branch, the Congress, and the Judiciary can make laws enjoining publication of current news and abridging freedom of the press in the name of "national security." ... To find that the President has "inherent power" to halt the publication of news by resort to the courts would wipe out the First Amendment and destroy the fundamental liberty and security of the very people the Government hopes to make "secure."

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. This thought was eloquently expressed in 1937 by Mr. Chief Justice Hughes - great man and great Chief Justice that he was - when the Court held a man could not be punished for attending a meeting run by Communists.

"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 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."

Mr. Justice Douglas, with whom Mr. Justice Black joins, concurring:
...
Secrecy in government is fundamentally anti-democratic, perpetuating bureaucratic errors. Open debate and discussion of public issues are vital to our national health. On public questions there should be "uninhibited, robust, and wide-open" debate.
...

Mr. Justice Stewart, with whom Mr. Justice White joins, concurring:

In the governmental structure created by our Constitution, the Executive is endowed with enormous power in the two related areas of national defense and international relations. This power, largely unchecked by the Legislative and Judicial branches, has been pressed to the very hilt since the advent of the nuclear missile age. ...

In the absence of the governmental checks and balances present in other areas of our national life, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry - in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government. For this reason, it is perhaps here that a press that is alert, aware, and free most vitally serves the basic purpose of the First Amendment. For without an informed and free press there cannot be an enlightened people.

...


Note: FYI, the above case was a 6-3 per curiam decision rejecting the Nixon administration's attempt to get injunctions restraining the publication of the infamous Pentagon Papers. I have, rather obviously I hope, only quoted a few select passages from some of the concurring opinions. Of course, there were other concurrences, more to the concurrences from which I quote, and two dissenting opinions.

Freedom of press doesnt exist in the naive idea that everything that is done under that freedom is good; It exists in the idea tha the good things that are done under freedom of press outweight the bad ones. So stop crying like babies if you got a little bit shocked from what some wacko jornalist done. If you take that journalist freedom to do shit, the freedom for you to, lets say, post in a forum can also be taken away.

Freedom of press doesnt exist in the naive idea that everything that is done under that freedom is good; It exists in the idea tha the good things that are done under freedom of press outweight the bad ones. So stop crying like babies if you got a little bit shocked from what some wacko jornalist done. If you take that journalist freedom to do shit, the freedom for you to, lets say, post in a forum can also be taken away.

Hear, hear.

To that I would add more wisdom from the US Supreme Court (again, not cited because it is authoritative, but because of its persuasive content).

New York Times v. Sullivan (http://laws.findlaw.com/us/376/254.html ), 376 US 254, 269-272 (1964):

The general proposition that freedom of expression upon public questions is secured by the First Amendment has long been settled by our decisions. The constitutional safeguard, we have said, "was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people." Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 484 . "The maintenance of the opportunity for free political discussion to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes may be obtained by lawful means, an opportunity essential to the security of the Republic, is a fundamental principle of our constitutional system." Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359, 369. "t is a prized American privilege to speak one's mind, although not always with perfect good taste, on all public institutions," [I]Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 270 , and this opportunity is to be afforded for "vigorous advocacy" no less than "abstract discussion." N. A. A. C. P. v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 429. The First Amendment, said Judge Learned Hand, "presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many this is, and always will be, folly; but we have staked upon it our all." United States v. Associated Press, 52 F. Supp. 362, 372 (D.C. S. D. N. Y. 1943). Mr. Justice Brandeis, in his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 375 -376, gave the principle its classic formulation:

"Those who won our independence believed . . . that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law - the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed."

Thus we consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open ...

Authoritative interpretations of the First Amendment guarantees have consistently refused to recognize an exception for any test of truth - whether administered by judges, juries, or administrative officials - and especially one that puts the burden of proving truth on the speaker. Cf. Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 525 -526. The constitutional protection does not turn upon "the truth, popularity, or social utility of the ideas and beliefs which are offered." N. A. A. C. P. v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 445. As Madison said, "Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing; and in no instance is this more true than in that of the press." 4 Elliot's Debates on the Federal Constitution (1876), p. 571. In Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 310 , the Court declared:

"In the realm of religious faith, and in that of political belief, sharp differences arise. In both fields the tenets of one man may seem the rankest error to his neighbor. To persuade others to his own point of view, the pleader, as we know, at times, resorts to exaggeration, to vilification of men who have been, or are, prominent in church or state, and even to false statement. But the people of this nation have ordained in the light of history, that, in spite of the probability of excesses and abuses, these liberties are, in the long view, essential to enlightened opinion and right conduct on the part of the citizens of a democracy."

That erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate, and [it] must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the "breathing space" that they "need . . . to survive," N. A. A. C. P. v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 433

Oliver Wendell Holmes also explained in his dissent in Abrams v. United States (http://laws.findlaw.com/us/250/616.html ), 250 US 616, 630 (1919) persecution of speech that is "untrue" may seem "perfectly logical":

But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas-that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. While that experiment is part of our system I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country.