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- We were making up, in a sense,

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First Amendment law 
as we went along.

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(gentle music)

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- You know, the First 
Amendment as we know it today

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is relatively recent, 
only 100 years old.

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Most people think 
First Amendment,

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beginning of the Constitution.

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Yes, it was there,

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but no Supreme Court cases 
interpreting it until 1919.

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(gentle music)

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- With the First World War,

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and really the establishment 
of the First Amendment

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as we know it today,

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the most important 
First Amendment cases

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were often national 
security cases.

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A conflict between 
individuals' right to speak

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with national security 
justifications

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offered by the government.

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- So only 100 years.

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And then in fact, it 
really only came together

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in the way that we 
understand it today

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in the 1960s and seventies.

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- Freedom, freedom, freedom.

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- The gains we've achieved 
in the Civil Rights Movement,

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we owe almost entirely 
to the First Amendment.

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It was the ability 
to march, to speak,

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to engage in demonstrations.

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(gentle music)

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- The Supreme Court, to the 
surprise of a lot of people,

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started saying that 
school children

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have First Amendment rights.

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A kid that went to school 
with a black arm band

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protesting the war in Vietnam 
had a right to have it.

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(gentle music)

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- Some of the really 
important cases

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in which we see the 
contemporary emergence

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of this conception of 
the First Amendment

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do critically involve the press.

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- The great case was New 
York Times against Sullivan.

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- Southern office holders 
wanted to enforce Jim Crow laws

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and wanted the northern 
press to shut up about it.

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- [Reporter] In a 
supercharged atmosphere,

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the racial antagonism 
flared into violence.

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- That's what these liable 
suits were designed to do,

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burden the press and 
get the New York Times

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and CBS News and other 
news organizations

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to stop covering the 
Civil Rights Movement.

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And the court said, "No,

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we're gonna change the 
rules around libel,

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so that doesn't happen."

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(gentle music)

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- [Lee] It was a 
political refashioning,

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one of the most exciting 
periods in modern history.

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(gentle music)