ABSTRACT
The Court first explored what could be called freedom of opinion: the right to express unorthodox political beliefs. It was "free trade in ideas" for which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes argued with constitutional passion. Second, the Court made it extremely difficult to prevent publication of alleged facts about government, regardless of their truth. A third large step to assure public criticism of government came. New York Times v. Sullivan held that officials could not recover libel damages for publication of defamatory falsehoods about them unless the errors were knowing or reckless. In the prison cases the question was precisely whether the public, through its agent the press, could learn enough to make informed judgments about the particular institutions. In Pell and Saxbe both public and press had substantial access, but Mr. Justice Powell in dissent argued that interviews with individual prisoners were essential to truth.
