Editing Prior restraint (section)

====''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}}