Founders’ Notions of the Freedom of the Press

Freedom of the press didn’t always exist. At only four hundred years old, it’s relatively new. Before then, official limits always determined what could and couldn’t be published. Sometimes there was harsh and exacting censorship, as in sixteenth-century Europe, which famously prosecuted and destroyed Galileo for challenging church authority. Sometimes the censorship regime was looser, as in ancient Athens, where philosophical writings circulated quietly though somewhat freely. Nonetheless, Athens put Socrates to death for speaking against the city’s gods. Censorship always was the default position.