The Supreme Court Case of The New York Times v. the United States was about how freedom of the press overcomes the prior restraint of the government when there is no catastrophic event to the safety of the armed forces. The Nixon administration tried to use prior restraint on the New York Times from printing out more newspapers on the Vietnam war and the classified study called, "History of U.S. Decision-Making on Vietnam Policy." It was not only the New York Times that had printed out the papers on the Pentagon papers, are the information on the Vietnam war, but also The Washington Post.
Supreme Court's Decision
The Supreme Court decided in favor of the Newspaper companies in a 6 to 3 vote among the Supreme Court Justices. The Supreme Court Decision also went with the United States v. Washington Post Company. The Supreme Court felt that the New York Times and the Washington Post didn't cause a catastrophic event to the safety of the United States. The Justices Black and Douglas argued the word "security" was a vague …show more content…
United States, 1971, affects me as a citizen, for if the New York Times didn't win the court case or the case didn't go to the Supreme Court, then the government could have the press and the media not show or give light on governmental issues and problems in our government. This would misinform the public and could cause a corrupt government to take over without the people recognizing the corruption in our government. Since the New York Times and The Washington Post won their case, they allowed the media to give the information to the people about government policy and issues. If the New York Times didn't win, then the media could never inform the public about government policy, without the possibility of the federal government using prior restraint, censoring the media. This Supreme Court Case impacts me and others when becoming informed about the government from the media and the