A federal judge has blocked the Pentagon’s press policy requiring media outlets to pledge not to gather information unless defense officials formally authorize its release. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, D.C., sided with The New York Times, which challenged the policy. Judge Friedman wrote, “Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech. That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now.”