Editing Prior restraint (section)

===H-bomb article cases===

====''Scientific American''====
On March 15, 1950 ''[[Scientific American]]'' magazine published an article by [[Hans Bethe]] about [[thermonuclear fusion]], the mechanism by which [[star]]s generate energy and emit [[electromagnetic radiation]] (light, etc.). Fusion is also the process which makes the [[hydrogen bomb]] (H-bomb) possible. The AEC ([[United States Atomic Energy Commission|Atomic Energy Commission]]) ordered publication stopped. Several thousand copies of the printed magazine were destroyed, and the article was published with some text removed at the direction of the AEC. At this time there existed in the United States no workable design for a hydrogen bomb (the [[Teller–Ulam]] design would not be developed for another year), but the U.S. was engaged in a crash program to develop one. [[Gerard Piel]], the publisher of ''Scientific American'', complained that the AEC was "suppressing information which the American People need in order to form intelligent judgments". Bethe, however, declined to support this complaint, and the suppression of the unedited version of the article was never litigated.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

====''The Progressive''====
{{main|United States v. The Progressive}}

In February 1979, an anti-nuclear activist named [[Howard Morland]] drafted an article for ''[[The Progressive]]'' magazine, entitled "The H-Bomb Secret: To Know How is to Ask Why". The article was an attempt by Morland to publish what he thought the "H-Bomb Secret" was (the [[Teller–Ulam design]]), derived from various unclassified sources and informal interviews with scientists and plant workers. Through a number of complicated circumstances, the [[United States Department of Energy|Department of Energy]] attempted to enjoin its publication, alleging that the article contained sensitive technical information which was (1) probably derived from classified sources, or (2) became a classified source when compiled in a correct way, even if it were derived from unclassified sources, based on the "[[born secret]]" provisions of the 1954 [[United States Atomic Energy Act of 1954|Atomic Energy Act]]. A preliminary injunction was granted against the article's publication, and Morland and the magazine appealed ([[United States v. The Progressive|United States v. ''The Progressive'', et al.]]). After a lengthy set of hearings (one ''[[in camera]]'', another open to the public), and attracting considerable attention as a "[[freedom of the press]]" case, the government dropped its charges after it claimed the case became moot when another bomb speculator ([[Chuck Hansen]]) published his own views on the "secret" (many commentators speculated that they were afraid the Atomic Energy Act would be overturned under such scrutiny). The article was duly published in ''The Progressive'' (in the November 1979 issue) six months after it was originally scheduled, and remains available in libraries. (As an aside, Morland himself decided that he did not have the secret, and published a "corrected" version a month later.)