PropertyValue
rdf:type
rdfs:label
  • United States v. The Progressive
rdfs:comment
  • United States of America v. Progressive, Inc., Erwin Knoll, Samuel Day, Jr., and Howard Morland, 467 F. Supp. 990 (W.D. Wis. 1979), was a lawsuit brought against The Progressive magazine by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) in 1979. A temporary injunction was granted against The Progressive to prevent the publication of an article by activist Howard Morland that purported to reveal the "secret" of the hydrogen bomb. Though the information had been compiled from publicly available sources, the DOE claimed that it fell under the "born secret" clause of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.
dcterms:subject
dbkwik:military/property/wikiPageUsesTemplate
Full Name
  • United States of America v. Progressive, Inc., Erwin Knoll, Samuel Day, Jr., and Howard Morland.
Name
  • United States of America v. Progressive, Inc.
ImageSize
  • 240
Caption
  • Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, Milwaukee, WI
Judges
date decided
  • 1979-03-28
ImageAlt
  • A Romanesque style building on a street corner. Photographed at dusk so the sky is still blue but the inside lights and street lights are on.
court
citations
  • 467
abstract
  • United States of America v. Progressive, Inc., Erwin Knoll, Samuel Day, Jr., and Howard Morland, 467 F. Supp. 990 (W.D. Wis. 1979), was a lawsuit brought against The Progressive magazine by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) in 1979. A temporary injunction was granted against The Progressive to prevent the publication of an article by activist Howard Morland that purported to reveal the "secret" of the hydrogen bomb. Though the information had been compiled from publicly available sources, the DOE claimed that it fell under the "born secret" clause of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Although the case was filed in the Western District of Wisconsin, the judge there recused himself as a friend of the magazine. The case was therefore brought before Judge Robert W. Warren, a judge in the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Because of the sensitive nature of information at stake in the trial, two separate hearings were conducted, one in public, and the other in camera. The defendants, Morland and the editors of The Progressive, would not accept security clearances, which would put restraints on their free speech, and so were not present at the in camera hearings. Their lawyers did obtain clearances so that they could participate, but were forbidden from conveying anything they heard there to their clients. The article was eventually published after the government lawyers dropped their case during the appeals process, calling it moot after other information was independently published. Despite its indecisive conclusion, law students still study the case, which "could have been a law school hypothetical designed to test the limits of the presumption of unconstitutionality attached to prior restraints".