Justice Hugo Black wrote an opinion that elaborated on his view of the absolute superiority of the First Amendment:
[T]he injunction against The New York Times should have been vacated without oral argument when the cases were first presented... . [E]very moment's continuance of the injunctions ... amounts to a flagrant, indefensible, and continuing violation of the First Amendment. ...
The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.
The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bear the secrets of the government and inform the people.
Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell. ... [W]e are asked to hold that ... the Executive Branch, the Congress, and the Judiciary can make laws ... abridging the freedom of the press in the name of 'national security.' ...
To find that the President has 'inherent power' to halt the publication of news ... would wipe out the First Amendment and destroy the fundamental liberty and security of the very people the Government hopes to make 'secure.' ...
The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment.
The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of an informed representative government provides no real security... .
The Framers of the First Amendment, fully aware of both the need to defend a new nation and the abuses of the English and Colonial governments, sought to give this new society strength and security by providing that freedom of speech, press, religion, and assembly should not be abridged.[17]
[emphasis mine]
Powerful words.
