The U.S. Supreme Court case Seattle Times Co., DBA The Seattle Times, et al. v. Rhinehart et al., 1983 revolved around the issue of whether a court order prohibiting a newspaper from publishing information obtained through pretrial discovery violated the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech and press. The respondents, members of an organization called Aquarian Foundation, sued the petitioners (Seattle Times) for defamation and invasion of privacy after they published articles about them based on information gathered during pretrial discovery process which was subject to a protective order by trial court preventing its dissemination outside courtroom proceedings. The Supreme Court held that such orders do not violate the First Amendment rights as long as they are limited to controlling dissemination during litigation process and not beyond it; this is because pretrial depositions and interrogatories often involve extensive intrusion into private matters but are necessary components in seeking truth in legal disputes. Therefore, while acknowledging that restraints on publication are generally unconstitutional prior restraints under First Amendment law, it ruled that when applied to discovered information before trial these restrictions serve substantial government interests unrelated to suppression of expression - namely preserving integrity of judicial system by keeping potentially prejudicial material out until admitted into evidence at trial.

In the dissenting opinion for Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart, Justice Brennan disagreed with the majority's ruling that upheld a protective order preventing a newspaper from publishing information obtained during pretrial discovery. He argued that this was an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech and press rights protected by the First Amendment. According to him, such orders should be subject to strict scrutiny because they suppress truthful information about matters of public concern without any proof of compelling state interest or narrowly tailored means used to achieve it. He also contended that there is no difference between suppressing publication of lawfully acquired information in general and doing so when it comes from pretrial discovery; both are equally harmful restrictions on free expression rights.