Civil Liberties: First Amendment Rights

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Civil Liberties First Amendment Rights
PSCI 110125 Sept 2007

• Freedom of speech
• Freedom of the press

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Free speech challenges1978 petition by an
American Nazi group to stage a rally in Skokie,
Illinois

• U.S. Court of Appeals decision
• When a choice must be made, it is better to
  allow those who preach racial hate to expend
  their venom in rhetoric rather than to be
  panicked into embarking on a dangerous course of
  permitting the government to decide what its
  citizens must say and hear.

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Freedom of the Press

• Are there limits to government protection of a
  free press?
• Problems for government
• 1. prior restraint (or censorship)
• 2. subsequent punishment

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Freedom of the Press

• Challenging issues
• 1. public nuisances
• 2. national security
• 3. obscenity

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Near v. Minnesota (1931)At issue prior
restraint of nuisance newspapers

Chief
Justice Hughes (1931) Some degree of abuse is
inseparable from the proper use of everything,
and in no instance is this more true than in that
of the press. It has accordingly been decided by
the practice of the States, that it is better to
leave a few of its noxious branches to their
luxuriant growth, than, by pruning them away, to
injure the vigour of those yielding proper
fruits.
1st Amendment, Free Press Case
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1st Amendment, Free Press Case
National security and the press conflicting
lessons from the Bay of Pigs ? The press might
broaden perspective, yielding better
decisions ? Is censorship justified in cases of
clear and present danger?
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1st Amendment, Free Press Case
Obscenity and the courts not protected
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1st Amendment, Free Press Case
Testing for obscenity ? prurient interest
test ? patently offensive test ? utterly
without redeeming social importance test ?
LAPS test (does not have serious literary,
artistic, political, or scientific value)