PRESSING THE EDGES.

• 1931 Near v. Minnesota ruled unconstitutional a Minnesota law that banned "malicious, scandalous, and defamatory" publications. The case created a broad prohibition on government censorship, known as a prior restraint, with narrow exceptions for "the publication of the sailing dates of transports or the number and location of troops."
• 1971 New York Times v. United States (the Pentagon Papers case) allowed the New York Times and the Washington Post to publish a secret government history of the Vietnam War. The case strengthened the ban on prior restraints, requiring the government to meet a "heavy burden" to justify censorship of the press, even when national security was potentially at stake.
• 1972 Branzburg v. Hayes held that reporters could be compelled to testify before a grand jury, even if it meant divulging the names of anonymous sources. Most states and the District of Columbia provide journalists with limited rights to protect their sources. The media have had some success persuading courts to recognize a narrow journalists' privilege not to testify based on a concurring opinion in Branzburg by Justice Lewis Powell.
• 1978 A state trial court in New Jersey sentenced New York Times reporter Myron Farber to six months in jail for refusing to reveal the sources of his articles about a doctor accused of murdering his patients. He served 40 days until a jury acquitted the doctor. In 1982, Farber was pardoned by New Jersey Gov. Brendan Byrne.
• 1991 Cohen v. Cowles Media allowed a source to sue a newspaper for breaching a confidentiality agreement when the newspaper revealed his identity despite promises by reporters that he would remain anonymous.
• 2004 Rhode Island television reporter Jim Taricani was sentenced to six months of home confinement after he refused to reveal who gave him a secret videotape of a Providence city official accepting a bribe from an undercover FBI informant. He was released after serving four months of his sentence.
• 2005 The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a jail sentence for former New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to identify sources to a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA operative's name to the press. Miller spent 85 days in jail and was released when she agreed to testify about her conversations with vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who has since been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Daniel Ellsberg

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Myron Farber

PHOTO (COLOR): Jim Taricani

PHOTO (COLOR): Judith Miller