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Shows that while the Supreme Court enforces some First Amendment rights vigorously, it often fails to protect ordinary citizens' expressive freedoms.
The standard account of the First Amendment presupposes that the Supreme Court has consistently expanded the scope of free speech rights over time. This account holds true in some areas, but not in others. In this illuminating work, Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jr acknowledges that the contemporary Supreme Court rigorously enforces the rules against content and viewpoint discrimination for those who possess the wherewithal to speak but when citizens need the government's assistance to speak - for example, access to public property for protest - free speech rights have declined. Instead of using open-ended balancing tests, the Roberts and Rehnquist Courts have opted for bright line, categorical rules that minimize judicial discretion. Opportunities for democratic engagement could be enhanced, however, if the federal courts returned to the Warren Court's balancing approach and vested federal judges with discretionary authority to require government to assist would-be speakers. This book should be read by anyone concerned with free speech and its place in democratic self-government.
This book argues that America's relationship with the First Amendment jeopardizes privacy, equality, fair trials and democracy.
The Supreme Court's 1919 decision in Schenck vs. the United States is one of the most important free speech cases in American history. Written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, it is most famous for first invoking the phrase "clear and present danger." Although the decision upheld the conviction of an individual for criticizing the draft during World War I, it also laid the foundation for our nation's robust protection of free speech. Over time, the standard Holmes devised made freedom of speech in America a reality rather than merely an ideal. In The Free Speech Century, two of America's leading First Amendment scholars, Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone, have gathered a group of the nation's leading constitutional scholars--Cass Sunstein, Lawrence Lessig, Laurence Tribe, Kathleen Sullivan, Catherine McKinnon, among others--to evaluate the evolution of free speech doctrine since Schenk and to assess where it might be headed in the future. Since 1919, First Amendment jurisprudence in America has been a signal development in the history of constitutional democracies--remarkable for its level of doctrinal refinement, remarkable for its lateness in coming (in relation to the adoption of the First Amendment), and remarkable for the scope of protection it has afforded since the 1960s. Over the course of The First Amendment Century, judicial engagement with these fundamental rights has grown exponentially. We now have an elaborate set of free speech laws and norms, but as Stone and Bollinger stress, the context is always shifting. New societal threats like terrorism, and new technologies of communication continually reshape our understanding of what speech should be allowed. Publishing on the one hundredth anniversary of the decision that laid the foundation for America's free speech tradition, The Free Speech Century will serve as an essential resource for anyone interested in how our understanding of the First Amendment transformed over time and why it is so critical both for the United States and for the world today.
Boxing, porn, and the beginnings of movie censorship -- The rise of salacious cinema -- State regulations emerge -- Mutual and the capacity for evil -- War, nudity, and birth control -- Self-regulation reemerges -- Midnight movies and sanctioned cinema -- Sound enters the debate -- Tension increases between free speech and state censorship -- Threats from abroad and domestic disturbances -- Outlaws and miracles -- State censorship statutes on the defense -- Devil in the details : film and the Fourth and Fifth Amendments -- Dirty words : profanity and the patently offensive -- Filthy pictures : obscenity from nudie cuties to fetish films -- The porno chic : from Danish loops to Deep throat -- Just not here : content regulation through zoning -- Is censorship necessary? -- The politics of profanity
These essays in political philosophy by T. M. Scanlon, written between 1969 and 1999, examine the standards by which social and political institutions should be justified and appraised. Scanlon explains how the powers of just institutions are limited by rights such as freedom of expression, and considers why these limits should be respected even when it seems that better results could be achieved by violating them. Other topics which are explored include voluntariness and consent, freedom of expression, tolerance, punishment, and human rights. The collection includes the classic essays 'Preference and Urgency', 'A Theory of Freedom of Expression', and 'Contractualism and Utilitarianism', as well as a number of other essays that have hitherto not been easily accessible. It will be essential reading for all those studying these topics from the perspective of political philosophy, politics, and law.
Since ratification of the First Amendment in the late eighteenth century, there has been a sea change in American life. When the amendment was ratified, individuals were almost completely free of unwanted speech; but today they are besieged by it. Indeed, the First Amendment has, for all practical purposes, been commandeered by the media to justify intrusions of offensive speech into private life. In its application, the First Amendment has become one-sided. Even though America is virtually drowning in speech, the First Amendment only applies to the speaker's delivery of speech. Left out of consideration is the one participant in the communications process who is the most vulnerable and least protected--the helpless recipient of offensive speech. In Rediscovering a Lost Freedom, Patrick Garry addresses what he sees as the most pressing speech problem of the twenty-first century: an often irresponsible media using the First Amendment as a shield behind which to hide its socially corrosive speech. To Garry, the First Amendment should protect the communicative process as a whole. And for this process to be free and open, listeners should have as much right to be free from unwanted speech as speakers do of not being thrown in jail for uttering unpopular ideas. Rediscovering a Lost Freedom seeks to modernize the First Amendment. With other constitutional rights, changed circumstances have prompted changes in the law. Restrictions on political advertising seek to combat the perceived influences of big money; the Second Amendment right to bear arms, due to the prevalence of violence in America, has been curtailed; and the Equal Protection clause has been altered to permit affirmative action programs aimed at certain racial and ethnic groups. But when it comes to the flood of violent and vulgar media speech, there has been no change in First Amendment doctrines. This work proposes a government-facilitated private right to censor. Rediscovering a Lost Freedom will be of interest to students of American law, history, and the U.S. Constitution.
A sceptical appraisal of the claim that freedom of expression is a human right.
The nation’s most celebrated First Amendment lawyer“explores the American right to free speech in this thoughtful and concise volume” (Publishers Weekly). The right of Americans to voice their beliefs without government approval or oversight is protected under what may well be the most honored and least understood addendum to the US Constitution—the First Amendment. Floyd Abrams, a noted lawyer and award-winning legal scholar specializing in First Amendment issues, examines the degree to which American law protects free speech more often, more intensely, and more controversially than is the case anywhere else in the world, including democratic nations such as Canada and England. In this lively, powerful, and provocative work, the author addresses legal issues from the adoption of the Bill of Rights through recent cases such as Citizens United. He also examines the repeated conflicts between claims of free speech and those of national security occasioned by the publication of classified material such as was contained in the Pentagon Papers and was made public by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden. “Abrams’s engaging and plain-spoken reflections will be of interest to those already steeped in constitutional law as well as young readers curious about the nation’s founding ideals . . . For Abrams, one inescapable truth applies across the history of First Amendment disputes. To allow the government to determine whose speech can be regulated . . . is, as [his] fascinating history shows, literally to play with fire.”—The Wall Street Journal “He dives into historic and contemporary controversies that test our adherence to these principles, noting, ‘Speech is sometimes ugly, outrageous, even dangerous.’”—The Washington Post