Originally Posted by dmp

This should do it:

During World War I, the American public was in a near hysterical state over the possibility of sabotage. Congress created and passed into law the Sedition Act in 1918. This legislature was possibly the dumbest policy to be made into law, ever. The Act made it a federal crime to criticize the federal government or the U.S. Constitution. The Act was used to censor pro-German publications. The government also exercised censorship against German language publications and those advocating socialism and pacifism. Kate Richards O’Hare was imprisoned for five years for making an anti-war speech in North Dakota. To further tarnish her reputation, the government coined the nickname “Red Kate.”

The most famous case of this law being enacted was US vs. Eugene V. Debs. Debs was a socialist that unsuccessfully ran for president on the Socialist ticket, on several occasions.
He was very anti-war, but still became somewhat popular. In his last election he won more than one million votes. He gave a speech, targeting young men, to rethink enlisting in the Army. For the heinous crime of what amounted to expressing his ideas to future soldiers, Debs was fined and punished to ten years in federal prison. His sentence was commuted to time served by President Warren Harding in 1921. The law under which he was convicted under was repealed by Congress that same year.

Advancements in technology have changed the face of the press forever. Today news is a twenty-four hour barrage of information. In Freeing the First Amendment, David Allen writes, “Technological change is forcing us to reconsider the First Amendment” (Allen et al. 169). Since 1921, the U.S. government has made few attempts to suppress freedom of the press. Quite the contrary, in recent times, moving beyond Military/Enlisted journalists, the U.S. government went as far as placing civilian journalists within military units during actual combat operations, such as the recent invasion of Iraq. The press was given a free hand to report what as going on within these units, and reporters did a very good job of presenting the details of the war objectively.

In one instance, Geraldo Rivera reported U.S. troop positions and strategy – live, on camera, broadcast on Fox news. In a hyper real news world this type of behavior could cause a huge dilemma. This stirred a storm of controversy, but Rivera was not punished or suppressed in anyway. The U.S. military simply asked that he (Double-check this fact – I’m pretty sure Geraldo was removed from the unit he was with – Ed.) not do that anymore and he complied. This could have been a move that undermined the Army’s strategy in that region, but the Army respected the first amendment and complied with it.

Another case where the press abused their freedom is the Danish cartoon controversy. In September of 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, images of the Islamic prophet Muhammad were drawn in a political cartoon. According to Islamic belief, any depiction of Muhammad is considered blasphemous. The published cartoons caused Danish Muslim organizations to protest. In some cases, these protests turn violent. This didn’t end in Denmark though, as this controversy inflamed, so did the media coverage of these cartoons. Eventually, the cartoons were reprinted in more than fifty different countries, leading to global protests. Critics of the cartoons argue the images are culturally insulting – and they are correct. The press has to be smarter than the Jyllands-Posten and Geraldo Rivera. Some things shouldn’t be reported or printed.

The Rivera case brings up the aspect that since the time of Galileo, the press has reached the pinnacle of its power. This power will not be broken and never will be again. The press has been perceived as having a superior sense of its first Amendment responsibilities. Alstyne Van touched on this in his Interpretations of the First Amendment. “But this cannot be right, can it? A press with superior first amendment rights and immunities in all of these respects” (Van 58)? Does this power allow the press run amok unchecked? Yes it does. However, this does not mean that the press should not act responsibly. Stan Lee said, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” This responsibility is illustrated perfectly with the Denmark cartoon debacle. Danish cartoonists should have thought about the consequences of printing images of Mohammed. This diminutive act caused a lot of trouble in Europe. The press cannot afford to be disrespectful to any group of people. It cannot discriminate against, race, sex, creed, religion, or sexual orientation. The press must remain an equal, unbiased, unchanging source of information. The press has a great responsibility to conscientiously wield the power that they have been granted.