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THE FIRST AMENDMENT
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exerise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peacably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
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| COURT CASES | LINKS | CONCEPTS | BLOG |
Sedition, in terms of free speech, has been defined as "words intended to provoke or incite rebellion against government authority." Until recently, laws in the United States allowed the government to prosecute people who spoke out against the government; such prosecutions happened during World War I and World War II to people who decried the war.
Current case law: Brandenberg v. Illinois
Defamation is the publication of false information about a person or small group of people. In times past, verbal defamation has been called "slander" and written defamation has been called "libel," but in contemporary usage, the terms are interchangable, and the standards for proving it are the same.
Defamatory comments are considered true until the person defamed proves otherwise. Proving defamation requires five elements:
Public figures who seek the media spotlight are held to a higher proof of fault than private citizens. Public figures must always prove actual malice, simply because they are in the media eye more often. "Public figures" are people who seek the limelight for matters of public importance to sway public opinion. "Limited public figures" are people who are public figures in some aspects of their life and not in others; writing a story about a private aspect of a limited public figure's life can be held to the "negligene" standard of fault.
Current case law: New York Times v. Sullivan, Philadelphia Newspapers v. Hepps
This has been defined by the Supreme Court to be any speech that:
Current case law: Miller v. California
"Fighting words" are kinds of speech or actions not protected by the First Amendment. The idea behind fighting words is to prevent people from using insults as legitimate speech, so that you cannot insult someone and then, upon being punched in the face, claim that your First Amendment rights were violated. There are just some words or actions which are so charged that they incite people to violence. The Court has ruled that fighting words must:
Current case law: Cohen v. California
Just like it sounds, prior restraint is censorship of speech before the speech is expressed. Often, the speech is suppressed for reasons of decency or security. Prior restraint is especially dangerous because, with other kinds of speech suppression, the idea is already in the public forum and people can debate its validity; however, with prior restraint, the idea is never even expressed, preventing others from knowing about it and deciding on their own whether or not it is valid speech (essentially, some other third body has already decided that the speech is invalid).
Current case law: New York Times v. United States
Not all speech is appropriate for all venues. Government is perfectly within its rights to prohibit speech in a certain way if it interferes with the normal operation of a particular place. The middle of a street, for example, is not a place for speech because expressing oneself there would interfere with the normal operation of the street, and besides, there are plenty of other places nearby to espouse that speech.
When it comes to public forums, the law speaks in terms of a gradient of forums, from "limited" to "pure." A park, for example, is a pure public forum because any kind of permitted speech would not interfere with the normal operation of that place. A limited public forum is a place that is sometimes a public forum and is sometimes not. Outside abortion clinics, for example, is a limited public forum because the courts have constrained the manner of the speech that is to be used by protesters outside of them. Another example of a limited public forum is airport terminals: the Supreme Court has ruled that solicitors may hand out literature in airport terminals, but they may not ask for money.
Current case law: Tinker v. Des Moines, ISKCON v. Lee, Madsen v. Women's Health Center
Schools, prisons, and the military are special places where speech is not entirely pure. In schools, for example, the welfare of students and the fact that the primary goal of the school is education sometimes means that free speech takes a back seat to education. In terms of school newspapers, the Supreme Court has said that schools can regulate the content of school newspapers that are produced by the school. However, students are free to express themselves unless the school can prove that there is a valid reason why the speech should be supressed.
Current case law: Tinker v. Des Moines, Bethel v. Fraser, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier
As prisons go, Supreme Court rulings have created a philosophy that controlling the prison population and maintaining order is more important than inmates' First Amendment rights. Prisons have the right to censor mail (only to the point where it is necessary to keep order and security), restrict media access to prisons, restrict prisoners' abilities to join unions, and censor prison newspapers. Prisoners do have constitutional rights, but they are somewhat less than free citizens.
Current case law: Procunier v. Martinez, Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union, Pittman v. Hutto
The military is also a unique institution, and as such, its rules about free speech are different from the "outside world." Again and again, the Supreme Court has held that maintaining order and discipline in the military is more important than soldiers' First Amendment rights. Therefore, soldiers do not explicitly have the right to criticize the government, petition the government, distribute non-sanctioned literature, or purchase sexually explicit materials on a military base.
Current case law: Parker v. Levy