Cite as: 509 U. S. 544 (1993)
Kennedy, J., dissenting
strictive measures have for governments tempted to control the speech and publications of their people. And our earliest cases tended to repeat the suggestion by Blackstone that prior restraints were the sole concern of First Amendment protections. See Patterson v. Colorado ex rel. Attorney General of Colorado, 205 U. S. 454, 462 (1907); Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275, 281 (1897). In time, however, the Court rejected the notion that First Amendment freedoms under our Constitution are coextensive with liberties available under the common law of England. See Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233, 248-249 (1936). From this came the conclusion that "[t]he protection of the First Amendment . . . is not limited to the Blackstonian idea that freedom of the press means only freedom from restraint prior to publication." Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572, n. 3 (1942).
As our First Amendment law has developed, we have not
confined the application of the prior restraint doctrine to its simpler forms, outright licensing or censorship before speech takes place. In considering governmental measures deviating from the classic form of a prior restraint yet posing many of the same dangers to First Amendment freedoms, we have extended prior restraint protection with some latitude, toward the end of declaring certain governmental actions to fall within the presumption of invalidity. This approach is evident in Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U. S. 697 (1931), the leading case in which we invoked the prior restraint doctrine to invalidate a state injunctive decree.
In Near, a Minnesota statute authorized judicial proceedings to abate as a nuisance a " 'malicious, scandalous and defamatory newspaper, magazine or other periodical.' " Id., at 701-702. In a suit brought by the attorney for Hennepin County it was established that Near had published articles in various editions of The Saturday Press in violation of the statutory standard. Id., at 703-705. Citing the instance of these past unlawful publications, the court enjoined any fu-
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