CBS fought very hard on this because it believed and believes that there's a principle at stake here. The principle is that Dan Rather doesn't work for the police, and that people that speak to Dan Rather understand that he's a journalist and not a police agent.Floyd Abrams
Select Floyd Abrams Quotations
There are some circumstances in which the First Amendment interest comes up against another interest that is really important and in which we have to make a decision in a particular case as to which is more important.
Floyd Abrams
So sometimes the facts are good and sometimes the facts are bad, the important thing from the point of view of a principle as broad and important as freedom of speech is that the courts articulate and set forth in a very protective way what those principles are.
Floyd Abrams
It just seems to be a human trait to want to protect the speech of people with whom we agree. For the First Amendment, that is not good enough. So it is really important that we protect First Amendment rights of people no matter what side of the line they are on.
Floyd Abrams
If the word gets out, if the perception exists that by speaking to a CBS journalist you are, therefore, inevitably, immediately speaking to the police, I don't think there's any doubt but that people won't talk. And, therefore, the public won't learn.
Floyd Abrams
I would say that the Pentagon Papers case of 1971 - in which the government tried to block the The New York Times and The Washington Post that they obtained from a secret study of how we got involved in the war in Vietnam - that is probably the most important case.
Floyd Abrams
When I began we did not really have a lot of First Amendment law. It is really surprising to think of it this way, but a lot of the law - most of the law that relates to the First Amendment freedom of the press in America - is really within living memory.
Floyd Abrams
Were this not Texas, were there not a state where there were no protections at all and where the law was clear on that, I think CBS and Mary Mapes and Dan Rather and all of us had a very good chance of winning. So this is an ongoing battle about an issue of principle.
Floyd Abrams
All Floyd Abrams Quotations
Words
Agent,
Because,
Believed,
Believes,
Cbs,
Dan,
Dan Rather,
Fought,
Hard,
Here,
Journalist,
Police,
Principle,
Rather,
Speak,
Stake,
Understand,
Very,
Work
Definitions
Agent,
Because,
Believed,
Dan,
Fought,
Hard,
Here,
Journalist,
Police,
Principle,
Rather,
Speak,
Stake,
Understand,
Very,
Work
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