\u201cCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.\u201d<\/p>\n
That is the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States. To many, it means that we have total freedom of speech \u2013 to say whatever we want, however and whenever we desire. But is that true? Is it what the amendment\u2019s authors intended?<\/p>\n
How much free speech do we really have? The fact of the matter is that much speech is severely restricted while other speech is completely unfettered. And sometimes, the rules regulating what\u2019s allowed and what isn\u2019t don\u2019t really make much sense.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s look at some of the cases where free speech isn\u2019t free at all.<\/p>\n
As we see, there are numerous abridgments to free speech. So, given that first amendment freedom of speech is not absolute, the question is, where do we draw the line?<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s look at a recent case now before the Maryland state court in Montgomery County. The former Director, CISA4<\/sup><\/a> who was fired by the president for making the statement on Twitter “59 election security experts all agree, ‘in every case of which we are aware, these claims (of fraud) either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.'” Now this was a simple statement of fact, but it was punished by dismissal because it disputed the President\u2019s claims. So what about Mr. Kreb\u2019s freedom of speech? This was not slander, it was not libel, it violated no statute, but he was punished for making it. Is that not censorship which is a clear violation of the First Amendment?<\/p>\n Then there is the follow-up issue of the televised statement on Newsmax by Joseph diGenova (one of the President\u2019s cadre of lawyers) about Mr. Krebs that \u201cHe should be drawn and quartered – taken out at dawn and shot.\u201d5<\/sup><\/a> Here, again, we have the issue of whether the First Amendment permits such speech. And what about the media that permits such speech to reach far and wide? If there are to be restrictions on the speech itself, should there not be restrictions on the media that broadcast such speech. If the speech itself is inflammatory, is not the media that broadcasts such speech adding fuel to the fire? These questions have major ramifications not just on the speakers, but on the media as well, especially social media where almost no restrictions apply. Where do we draw the line?<\/p>\n Don\u2019t get me wrong. I am a strong supporter of freedom of information and an opponent of unwarranted secrecy and censorship. But I also oppose speech that is harmful to others or our government6<\/sup><\/a>. I also believe that First Amendment freedom of speech should not be absolute and there needs to be some restrictions on what is spoken and how it is conveyed. But the line needs to be carefully drawn as it is a slippery slope to censorship and abuse.<\/p>\n 1<\/sup> 18 USC Chapter 115 (esp. 18 USC 2384)<\/p>\n 2<\/sup> 18 USC 2101<\/p>\n 3<\/sup> This is true regardless of any real threat to national security. Unfortunately, much information is unnecessarily classified SECRET and the laws covering state secrets are often abused to hide embarrassing information from the public.<\/p>\n 4<\/sup> Department of Homeland Security, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency<\/p>\n 5<\/sup> This televised statement resulted in numerous threats to Mr. Krebs, his family and property, and caused him to relocate for his security.<\/p>\n 6<\/sup> The issue, \u201cWhat is truly harmful?\u201d is also a sticky one as it is purely subjective. If one is simply \u201cmorally offended\u201d or simply embarrassed , does that constitute harm?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.\u201d That is the first amendment to the Constitution of the … Continue reading Freedom of Speech<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musingsofamaverick.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musingsofamaverick.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musingsofamaverick.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musingsofamaverick.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musingsofamaverick.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=663"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/musingsofamaverick.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":671,"href":"https:\/\/musingsofamaverick.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663\/revisions\/671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musingsofamaverick.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musingsofamaverick.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musingsofamaverick.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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