hey there and welcome back to heimlich's history and this video is time to look at yet another one of your required supreme court cases for the ap government curriculum namely new york times v the united states so if you're ready to get their brain cows milked then let's get to it okay so first of all as always let's get the facts of the case in the late 1960s and into the 1970s the u.s was involved in the vietnam conflict which was basically an undeclared war and this was not a war that americans felt great about because the purpose of our involvement was not because we had been attacked or anything like that but because of this kind of vague geopolitical purpose of containing the spread of communism as it turned out despite the magnitude of the u.s military we just weren't able to make much progress against the north vietnamese so as tens of thousands of american men were dying for a war that congress didn't even declare the public grew cynical about it but president johnson and then richard nixon just kept telling everyone listen we've almost won we just need a few more men and just a little more time like everything is going great well as it turned out nixon commissioned a top secret inquiry into the history of the u.s involvement in the war and the findings were not flattering it showed how presidents and agencies had systematically deceived the public concerning the war and much to nixon's chagrin one of the guys who worked on the report leaked huge portions of it to the new york times and the washington post and newspapers did what newspapers do and started publishing these damning papers which confirmed what everyone suspected namely our government is lying to us and those lies are costing thousands of lives well it only took one publication for the nixon administration to send an order to the papers to cease publication of top secret documents because it could threaten national security and this was a procedure called prior restraint in other words the nixon administration tried to keep the paper from publishing these documents before they were printed and that's how this case wound up before the supreme court so what was the constitutional principle at stake well this is pretty clearly a first amendment case specifically a case about the first amendment's protection of the freedom of the press the new york times claimed that nixon's invocation of prior restraint violated their first amendment rights the knicks administration argued that prior restraint was justified in this case because the publication of these papers would threaten national security so what was the decision well the court agreed with the new york times that the nixon administration's restraining order was unconstitutional and therefore allowed the paper to continue printing the pentagon papers and the opinion handed down by the court they said that quote any system of prior restraints comes to this court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity in other words whenever a case involving the freedom of the press comes before the court the bar to clear for prior restraint is very high now to be fair the opinion also made clear that prior restraint can be used if it is really a matter of national security for example if a new york times reporter decided to publish the day and time and landing location of the d-day invasion well yeah you can't do that prior restraint is justified in that case but in this case nixon just didn't want to be exposed as a deceitful turd who would lie to the american people and that my friends is exactly what the free press is for so why does this case matter the decision is of course hailed as a victory for the free press against censorship and despite the criticism that it has received for being overly vague on exactly when prior restraint can be invoked the decision made it very hard to censor the free press ever since okay thanks for watching click right here and grab a few packet if you want help getting an a in your class and a five on your exam in may right over here you can find a playlist of all my other videos covering your required cases and if you want me to keep making these videos then by all means subscribe and i shall oblige i'm the route