A landmark ruling against prior restraint
A New York trial judge has temporarily blocked the New York Times from publishing some materials concerning the rightwing activist group Project Veritas, a rare step that the newspaper said violated decades of first amendment constitutional protections.
The order by Justice Charles Wood of the Westchester county supreme court covers memos written by a Project Veritas lawyer and obtained by the New York Times.
Remember the Pentagon Papers?
“This ruling is unconstitutional and sets a dangerous precedent,” Dean Baquet, the Times’s executive editor, said in an emailed statement.
“When a court silences journalism, it fails its citizens and undermines their right to know,” he added. “The supreme court made that clear in the Pentagon Papers case, a landmark ruling against prior restraint blocking the publication of newsworthy journalism. That principle clearly applies here. We are seeking an immediate review of this decision.“
Baquet’s statement referred to the US supreme court’s 1971 rejection of the Nixon administration’s attempt to stop the New York Times and the Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers, which revealed details unwelcome to the administration about US military involvement in Vietnam.
They want to keep their secrets.
