Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment

I read this book for a specific purpose: to clarify President Obama's comments in his January 2010 State of the Union speech. Mr Abrams took me through a number of cases in which he was involved including the Pentagon Papers, Wayne Newton, the Brooklyn Museum and the first case about the constitutionality of McCain-Feingold law to attempt to limit the money in politics. He has a noble mind and passionately defends Freedom of the Press. Interestingly, when he came into the practice of law, he admits to a much more reserved view of Press freedom -- and, after reading his book, I reversed my own thinking about the Pentagon Papers case. Freedom of the Press would seem to be an easy enough concept to grasp and apply. It is not. For instance, show more in the Pentagon Papers case, we recall they were in Daniel Ellsburg's possession illegally. One cannot deny that Mr Ellsburg did profit from the release of the Pentagon Papers so there is a real complicating issue, which defeated many of us, myself included, from the Press Freedom issue. show less