From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 17:46:24 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Bernstein hearing: The Press Release
Message-ID: <199609220730.AAA20792@dfw-ix2.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 10:24 PM 9/21/96 -0800, Jim Bell wrote:
>At 11:30 PM 9/21/96 -0400, Mark M. wrote:
>>I believe there is one section in the Constitution that says that speech
>>harmful to national security is not protected under the 1st amendment. 
>I can't think of what portion of the Constitution you're referring to.  But 
>chances are, somebody else will see this reference and comment.

The First Amendment does not contain the phrase "national security"
anywhere in it.  It does, however, begin with a rather explicit
"Congress shall make no law" which it applies to a bunch of things.
However, the body of the Constitution does say there should be a
Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court has (fairly reasonably) given itself
the job of deciding what's Constitutional and what's not.
The Supremes have, over the years, made a bunch of generally outrageous
decisions about what kinds of speech are protected by the First Amendment
and what kinds aren't, though their opinions have been gradually
improving since some of the really appalling ones earlier in the century.

By the way, alt.federal.judge.bork.bork.bork has recently come out with
a book in which he discusses issues like censorship.  He's in favor of it.

#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> 	
# You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto