Notice: ob_end_flush(): Failed to delete and flush buffer. No buffer to delete or flush in /home1/ntptuqmy/public_html/quotes/includes/header_html.php on line 6 Floyd Abrams Quotes - IQDb - Internet Quotes Database
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.
The question at the end of the day was, the courts having found there was no defense, a producer about to go to jail, should CBS in effect tell the producer go to jail even though there is no law at all that we can use to get you out of jail?
The government would be able to go to court with respect to newspaper articles, broadcast pieces and the like that they thought were bad or harmful or even against the government and try to block them.
My role in it was not as central as it was in some of the later cases considering I was younger then and I was playing a role of co-counsel on the case.
It is within the last quarter century or thirty years. And a lot of that law has turned out to be very, very protective of the press and the public's right to know.
It is not to benefit CBS, not to benefit its reporters. On this one, the entire basis of it is this is a way to get more information, more important information to the public. And that's why so many states recognize this.
I think we have some serious problems now, but, if you look back over the last thirty or forty years that my book deals with, I think we are in better shape now than we would have been if all of those cases had not come down.
I think that it is important for people to understand that whether a good-guy or a bad-guy wins a case is less important than what the law is that the case results in.
I really did try to write it so that an educated public that cares about issues like this doesn't have to be a lawyer and can read it and understand it.
I know a lot of reporters certainly will go to jail to defend confidential sources. Some have even gone to jail for an issue like this. But I can't say that's the norm.
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.
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.
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.
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.
No other country in the world gives protection like that, but it is not absolute protection. People sometimes meet that high burden and win libel suits, and in those cases I think they ought to win.
