-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Sun, 22 Sep 1996, Bill Stewart wrote:
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.
I did a little searching and couldn't find anything about a national security exception in the Consitution. It's already a stretch to claim that disclosure of information vital to "nation security" is treason. The Espionage Act, which is so obviously unconstitutional, seems to make "harmful" speech illegal. Mark - -- PGP encrypted mail prefered. Key fingerprint = d61734f2800486ae6f79bfeb70f95348 http://www.voicenet.com/~markm/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMkWIpCzIPc7jvyFpAQFJFggAi9H/vbu9GN21rbjJnhyUoHy3TEZ+1ZsI in88Z9zqCuFyv28Q+vqKgTl0pvsBQNps1Ji4GXCv2LMaxGCbuzsvDLFxiqqVF8ev fC7MB7fl1r33ik1QCngygoPonb9yj79Ok0oKgms6sNNsVEkGe3hn5QHahNc7TRJX lzkHJ6ufVI/yNmh3KtqwWlAjE1vZ8esOrExRpiszrQDK1gDlNRFqA0Yor3bsDrlE wedkFUioEbK0Xv24ajeU0s9dYgkDt25OxUENT2ddnqzD1lfVOrVLx1zmroMl4mh1 MC1D2dd8ErN25/V83phFLbpzNA7EPKYQyNZtzOY28uD/XpoqziGS1g== =CrOM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----