Prior Restraint Becomes a Fact
A door to press censorship has been opened that some fear may never be closed. In prohibiting The Progressive magazine from publishing an article about how hydrogen bombs are made, Federal District Court Judge Robert W. Warren became last week the first Federal judge ever to issue an injunction imposing prior restraint in a national security case. The judge acknowledged that the case involved “a basic confrontation between the First Amendment right to freedom of the press and national security,” but said he believed the Government had shown that publication would violate sections of the Atomic Energy Act. (The Judge Has Ruled, Page 9.)