Freedom of Speech

"... The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the 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...."
        --Justice Hugo Black, New York Times v. Unites States (Pentagon Papers)

"It is a seldom profered argument as to the advantages of a free press that is has a major function in keeping the government itself informed as to what the government is doing."
        --Walter Cronkite

"The function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it invites a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger."
        --Justice William O. Douglas

"... The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information...."
        --Justice William O. Douglas, New York Times v. Unites States (Pentagon Papers)

"The information superhighway is a revolution that in years to come will transcend newspapers, radio, and television as an information source. Therefore, I think this is the time to put some restrictions on it."
        --Sen. James Exon, (Democrat, Nebraska)

"The First Amendment was designed to protect offensive speech, because nobody ever tries to ban the other kind."
        --Mike Godwin, staff counsel, EFF

"As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue. No, it's much, much bigger than that. I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated."
        --Charlton Heston

"The right to be heard does not include the right to be taken seriously."
        --Hubert H. Humphrey

"Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe."
        --Thomas Jefferson

"...[A] prohibition on moral judgments against various sexual behaviors is a violation of the freedom, even of the religious liberty, of those who view such behavior as wrong. If we don't have a right to act according to our religious belief by forming judgments according to those beliefs about human conduct and behavior, then, exactly what does the free exercise of religion mean? Can the free exercise of religion really mean simply that I have the right to believe that God has ordained certain things to be right or wrong but that I can't act accordingly? Surely free exercise means the freedom to act according to belief. And, yet, if we are not allowed to act according to belief when it comes to fundamental moral precepts, then what will be the moral implications of religion? None at all. But if we accept an understanding of religious liberty that doesn't permit us to discriminate the wheat from the chaff in our own actions and those of others, haven't we in fact permitted the government to dictate to us a uniform approach to religion? And, isn't that dictation of uniformity in religion exactly what the First Amendment intended to forbid?"
        --Alan Keyes

"And I honor the man who is willing to sink half his present repute for the freedom to think, and, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak."
        --James Russell Lowell

"If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them."
        --George Orwell

"Our republic and its press will rise and fall together."
        --Joseph Pulitzer

"We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard."
        --Voltaire