I thought that one of the things that we were losing sight of is the basic reasons that we do protect free speech and freedom of the press and the essentiality and centrality in our lives of really giving broad protection to freedom of speech and freedom of the press in America. I thought I could do that by telling stories of some of the cases that established those principles on a real life on the ground basis.

I would say that the Pentagon Papers case of 1971 - in which the government tried to block the 'The New York Times' and 'The Washington Post' and other newspapers from publishing papers that they obtained from a secret study of how we got involved in the war in Vietnam - that is probably the most important case.

It is within the last quarter century or thirty years. And a lot of that law has turned out to be very, very protective of the press and the public's right to know.

The government would be able to go to court with respect to newspaper articles, broadcast pieces and the like that they thought were bad or harmful or even against the government and try to block them.

It just seems to be a human trait to want to protect the speech of people with whom we agree. For the First Amendment, that is not good enough. So it is really important that we protect First Amendment rights of people no matter what side of the line they are on.

If the word gets out, if the perception exists that by speaking to a CBS journalist you are, therefore, inevitably, immediately speaking to the police, I don't think there's any doubt but that people won't talk. And, therefore, the public won't learn.

I think that the very fact that CBS fought and fought and fought in Texas, in New York.