"The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government…. In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times . . . should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly."
npr.org
Justice William Douglas
"Secrecy in government is fundamentally anti-democratic, perpetuating bureaucratic errors. Open debate and discussion of public issues are vital to our national health. On public questions there should be ‘uninhibited, robust, and wide-open’ debate."
supremecourtopinions.com
Justice William Brennan
"[T]he First Amendment stands as an absolute bar to the imposition of judicial restraints in circumstances of the kind presented by these cases."
bradwarthern.com
Justice Potter Stewart
"For this reason, it is perhaps here that a press that is alert, aware, and free most vitally serves the basic purpose of the First Amendment. For without an informed and free press there cannot be enlightened people."
constitutioncenter.org
Justice Byron White
"Prior restraints require an unusually heavy justification under the First Amendment; but failure by the Government to justify prior restraints does not measure its constitutional entitlement to a conviction for criminal publication. That the Government mistakenly chose to proceed by injunction does not mean that it could not successfully proceed in another way. When the Espionage Act was under consideration . . . Congress . . . was unwilling to clothe the President with such far-reaching powers to monitor the press. However, these same members of Congress appeared to have little doubt that newspapers would be subject to criminal prosecution if the insisted on publishing information of the type Congress had itself determined should not be revealed."
chnm.gmu.edu
Justice Thurgood Marshall
"It is not for this Court to fling itself into every breach perceived by some Government official nor is it for this Court to take on itself the burden of enacting law, especially a law that Congress has refused to pass."
The 3 dissenting opinions
biography.com
Chief Justice Warren Burger
"The newspapers make a derivative claim under the First Amendment; they denominate this right as the public ‘right to know’; by implication, the Times asserts a sole trusteenship of that right by virtue of its journalistic ‘scoop.’ The right is asserted as an absolute. Of course, the First Amendment right itself is not an absolute."
nndb.com
Justice John Harlan
"This frenzied train of events took place in the name of the presumption against prior restraints created by the First Amendment. Due regard for the extraordinarily important and difficult questions involved in these litigations should have led the Court to shun such a precipitate timetable. In order to decide the merits of these cases properly."
law2.unkc.edu
Justice Harry Blackmun
"The First Amendment, after all, is only one part of an entire Constitution. Article II of the great document vests in the Executive Branch primary power over the conduct of foreign affairs and places in that branch the responsibility for the Nation’s safety."