Floyd Abrams
Floyd Abrams
Floyd Abramsis an American attorney at Cahill Gordon & Reindel. He is an expert on constitutional law, and many arguments in the briefs he has written before the United States Supreme Court have been adopted as United States Constitutional interpretative law as it relates to the First Amendment and free speech. He is the William J. Brennan Jr. Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionLawyer
CountryUnited States of America
battle cbs chance clear dan good issue law mary ongoing rather state
Were this not Texas, were there not a state where there were no protections at all and where the law was clear on that, I think CBS and Mary Mapes and Dan Rather and all of us had a very good chance of winning. So this is an ongoing battle about an issue of principle.
case interest particular
There are some circumstances in which the First Amendment interest comes up against another interest that is really important and in which we have to make a decision in a particular case as to which is more important.
absolute burden cases country gives high libel ought people
No other country in the world gives protection like that, but it is not absolute protection. People sometimes meet that high burden and win libel suits, and in those cases I think they ought to win.
answer behave best judges opponents straight whether
I really try at least to come back and answer the question as to whether that was really the best way to do that and was I really thinking straight and how did my opponents behave and how did the judges behave was needed.
defend preaching
I try to do that in this book without preaching - to try to do as you just said that you really have to defend the First Amendment rights of everybody.
amount cbs fewer good hear inevitable interviews mean people press public talks
I mean the idea of this is that it's a good thing for the public to hear interviews like this and that there will be an inevitable amount of fewer interviews if people that the press talks to wind up thinking, well, it's not really a CBS correspondent.
exaggerate facts judges lawyers major players role
It has something to do with the facts and the law and who the judges are. So I think lawyers sometimes exaggerate their role in winning and losing. Lawyers do have a role, and a major role, but they're not the only players in this game.
case dan happened
Here we have a situation where a defendant in a case agrees to an interview with Dan Rather. It happened to be not confidential. But it was an interview with Dan Rather.
act disclosure entity generally information obtaining protected
Where the disclosure is of newsworthy information and it is made by an entity that did not act illegally in obtaining the information, the disclosure is generally protected under the First Amendment.
arrived call came days jail judy knew letter miller protect sat
While Judy Miller sat in jail for 85 days and Mr. Libby knew that she was doing it to protect him, no call came in from him, no letter arrived from him,
delicate difficult great phone pick promises reluctance sort sources time
There is a great reluctance on the part of journalists..to pick up the phone and sort of badger sources into relieving them of the promises they made, especially at the time that the promises are most important, when the source is in trouble. This is a very difficult and very delicate area.
abandon al book case decision efforts sale
Fox's decision to abandon its efforts at interfering with the sale of Al Franken's new book is welcome, if overdue. The case never should have been brought.
amendment issues
First Amendment issues are always unpopular. That's why we need a First Amendment.
asking assure source
to assure that the only source he would effectively be asking about was Mr. Libby.