Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press |
| | Since the growth of the Internet, the ability to publish news and opinion--and to reach an audience--is undergoing as dramatic an expansion as the original invention of the printing press. Publishing's power is revealed by the fact that Freedom of the Press was almost immediately contravened by John Adams' Sedition Act of 1798, which criminalized publishing "false, scandalous, and malicious" criticism of the government. Although the Sedition Act only allowed punishing speech after publication and only if the speech was factually false, Americans discovered that laws criminalizing speech and even the state of the truth could be overpowered by the government--even misrepresentations and outright lies had to have full protection if speech was to have any protection at all. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court did not arrive at a standard of protection until 1969, when they struck down the conviction of a Ku Klux Klan member in Brandenburg v. Ohio and ruled that expression can be limited by government only if it is "intended and likely to produce imminent lawless action." This high standard still holds, but is undermined by a culture of secrecy in the military and government and obscenity laws. |
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Tuesday, September 3, 2002 |
© Copyright 2002 Lucas Burke.
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