The above quotation comes from Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black regarding the New York Times Co. v. United States (the Pentagon Papers case). These words should be taken to heart by all those who are citizens of these United States, for a free press, free assembly, and freedom of speech are absolutely mandatory and essential for anyone to consider themselves to actually be free. The reason why the government desires so often to restrain our freedoms and why the citizens of this nation must always fight back is that the government far too often isn’t interested in performing its duties via the consent of the governed but rather prefers that those who are its citizens be obedient to its dictates, and thereby what is unknown to the public should remain unknown, because the government does not desire it to be exposed to the light, because they do not want the truth to be known.
The very point of freedom is for people to be able to express themselves in a way and manner that permits them to have their say. Additionally, the best and most informative press, social media, and television is never going to be from those that simply serve as a mouthpiece of the government, but rather from those entities that ask those inconvenient questions and thereby holds that government to account, because that government, of, for, and by the people needs to be responsive to the people, as opposed to desiring their silence in the hope that silence equates to approval.
Indeed, the more open and transparent a government is, in all that it says and does on behalf of the governed, the better that government is going to be for the people, as opposed to that government behaving in a way in which the most important issues of the day are hidden from the public, or publicize in a way in which such is deceptive or even worse, represent outright lies to the people so as to trick the public as to what is really going on, which is a betrayal of what good governance is supposed to be.
Any responsible government needs to be held accountable to the people, which therefore necessitates that the people need to have a press that is not beholden to that government or compromised by corporate interests, in which pleasing certain entities, especially for profit, trumps the vital news that is meant for the public to know, but instead is suppressed or distorted.
We, as citizens, have a responsibility to see that our government is responsive to our needs and concerns, of which, this necessitates our access to what our government is doing on our behalf, and therefore the more secrets that are held back from the public knowing which should be known, makes for a situation in which the whole truth is not known because it is hidden, which is not what good governance is supposed to be about and should be minimized as much as possible.
In sum, a free people, in order to be truly free, need openness from their government, so that they can see what is really going on, and from there, have their input, typically enabled by a free press that lays all the cards on the table available for the citizens' conscientious perusal.