Download or read book The Government s Speech and the Constitution written by Helen Norton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-22 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Identifies and explains the constitutional problems triggered by the government's speech, and proposes a new framework for thinking about them.
Download or read book When Government Speaks written by Mark G. Yudof and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-04-03 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Government's ever-increasing participation in communication processes, Mark Yudof argues, threatens key democratic values that the First Amendment was designed to protect. Government control over the exchange of ideas and information would be inconsistent with citizen autonomy, informed consent, and a balanced and mutually responsive relationship between citizens and their government. Yet the danger of government dominance must be weighed against the necessary role of government in furthering democratic values by proposing and promotion policies and by disseminating information and educating citizens. Restraints on government's ability to control communications processes are desirable, but excessive or inappropriate restrictions threaten democracy. Professor Yudof identifies a number of formal and informal checks on government as disseminator, withholder, and controller of ideas and information. Where more controls are needed, the strengthening of pluralism and legislative oversight is generally the answer. Constitutional redress in the courts should be sought only in extreme instances, he cautions, to avoid judicial interference with legitimate policy objectives.
Download or read book The Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2018-08-20 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.
Download or read book The Soul of the First Amendment written by Floyd Abrams and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively and controversial overview by the nation's most celebrated First Amendment lawyer of the unique protections for freedom of speech in America 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.
Download or read book Free Speech and the Regulation of Social Media Content written by Valerie C. Brannon and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2019-04-03 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the Supreme Court has recognized, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have become important venues for users to exercise free speech rights protected under the First Amendment. Commentators and legislators, however, have questioned whether these social media platforms are living up to their reputation as digital public forums. Some have expressed concern that these sites are not doing enough to counter violent or false speech. At the same time, many argue that the platforms are unfairly banning and restricting access to potentially valuable speech. Currently, federal law does not offer much recourse for social media users who seek to challenge a social media provider's decision about whether and how to present a user's content. Lawsuits predicated on these sites' decisions to host or remove content have been largely unsuccessful, facing at least two significant barriers under existing federal law. First, while individuals have sometimes alleged that these companies violated their free speech rights by discriminating against users' content, courts have held that the First Amendment, which provides protection against state action, is not implicated by the actions of these private companies. Second, courts have concluded that many non-constitutional claims are barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, which provides immunity to providers of interactive computer services, including social media providers, both for certain decisions to host content created by others and for actions taken "voluntarily" and "in good faith" to restrict access to "objectionable" material. Some have argued that Congress should step in to regulate social media sites. Government action regulating internet content would constitute state action that may implicate the First Amendment. In particular, social media providers may argue that government regulations impermissibly infringe on the providers' own constitutional free speech rights. Legal commentators have argued that when social media platforms decide whether and how to post users' content, these publication decisions are themselves protected under the First Amendment. There are few court decisions evaluating whether a social media site, by virtue of publishing, organizing, or even editing protected speech, is itself exercising free speech rights. Consequently, commentators have largely analyzed the question of whether the First Amendment protects a social media site's publication decisions by analogy to other types of First Amendment cases. There are at least three possible frameworks for analyzing governmental restrictions on social media sites' ability to moderate user content. Which of these three frameworks applies will depend largely on the particular action being regulated. Under existing law, social media platforms may be more likely to receive First Amendment protection when they exercise more editorial discretion in presenting user-generated content, rather than if they neutrally transmit all such content. In addition, certain types of speech receive less protection under the First Amendment. Courts may be more likely to uphold regulations targeting certain disfavored categories of speech such as obscenity or speech inciting violence. Finally, if a law targets a social media site's conduct rather than speech, it may not trigger the protections of the First Amendment at all.
Download or read book A Right to Lie written by Catherine J. Ross and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do the nation's highest officers, including the President, have a right to lie protected by the First Amendment? If not, what can be done to protect the nation under this threat? This book explores the various options.
Download or read book Freedom for the Thought That We Hate written by Anthony Lewis and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than any other people on earth, we Americans are free to say and write what we think. The press can air the secrets of government, the corporate boardroom, or the bedroom with little fear of punishment or penalty. This extraordinary freedom results not from America’s culture of tolerance, but from fourteen words in the constitution: the free expression clauses of the First Amendment.InFreedom for the Thought That We Hate, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Anthony Lewis describes how our free-speech rights were created in five distinct areas—political speech, artistic expression, libel, commercial speech, and unusual forms of expression such as T-shirts and campaign spending. It is a story of hard choices, heroic judges, and the fascinating and eccentric defendants who forced the legal system to come face to face with one of America’s great founding ideas.
Download or read book American Government 3e written by Glen Krutz and published by . This book was released on 2023-05-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black & white print. American Government 3e aligns with the topics and objectives of many government courses. Faculty involved in the project have endeavored to make government workings, issues, debates, and impacts meaningful and memorable to students while maintaining the conceptual coverage and rigor inherent in the subject. With this objective in mind, the content of this textbook has been developed and arranged to provide a logical progression from the fundamental principles of institutional design at the founding, to avenues of political participation, to thorough coverage of the political structures that constitute American government. The book builds upon what students have already learned and emphasizes connections between topics as well as between theory and applications. The goal of each section is to enable students not just to recognize concepts, but to work with them in ways that will be useful in later courses, future careers, and as engaged citizens. In order to help students understand the ways that government, society, and individuals interconnect, the revision includes more examples and details regarding the lived experiences of diverse groups and communities within the United States. The authors and reviewers sought to strike a balance between confronting the negative and harmful elements of American government, history, and current events, while demonstrating progress in overcoming them. In doing so, the approach seeks to provide instructors with ample opportunities to open discussions, extend and update concepts, and drive deeper engagement.
Download or read book The Cult of the Constitution written by Mary Anne Franks and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A powerful challenge to the prevailing constitutional orthodoxy of the right and the left . . . A deeply troubling and absolutely vital book” (Mark Joseph Stern, Slate). In this provocative book, Mary Anne Franks examines the thin line between constitutional fidelity and constitutional fundamentalism. The Cult of the Constitution reveals how deep fundamentalist strains in both conservative and liberal American thought keep the Constitution in the service of white male supremacy. Franks demonstrates how constitutional fundamentalists read the Constitution selectively and self-servingly, thus undermining the integrity of the document as a whole. She goes on to argue that economic and civil libertarianism have merged to produce a deregulatory, “free-market” approach to constitutional rights that achieves fullest expression in the idealization of the Internet. The fetishization of the first and second amendments has blurred the boundaries between conduct and speech and between veneration and violence. But the Constitution itself contains the antidote to fundamentalism. The Cult of the Constitution lays bare the dark, antidemocratic consequences of constitutional fundamentalism and urges readers to take the Constitution seriously, not selectively.
Download or read book Freedom of Speech and Press written by Henry Cohen and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010-02 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report provides an overview of the major exceptions to the First Amendment ¿ of the ways that the Supreme Court has interpreted the guarantee of freedom of speech and press to provide no protection or only limited protection for some types of speech. Contents: Intro.; Obscenity; Child Pornography; Content-Based Restrictions; Non-Content-Based Restrictions; Prior Restraint; Commercial Speech; Defamation; Speech Harmful to Children; Children¿s First Amend. Rights; Time, Place, and Manner Restrictions; Incidental Restrictions; Symbolic Speech; Compelled Speech; Radio and TV; Freedom of Speech and Gov¿t. Funding; Free Speech Rights of Gov¿t. Employees and Gov¿t. Contractors; and Public Forum Doctrine.
Download or read book The Short Life and Curious Death of Free Speech in America written by Ellis Cose and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named one of Newsweek’s "25 Must-Read Fall Fiction and Nonfiction Books to Escape the Chaos of 2020" The critically acclaimed journalist and bestselling author of The Rage of a Privileged Class explores one of the most essential rights in America—free speech—and reveals how it is crumbling under the combined weight of polarization, technology, money and systematized lying in this concise yet powerful and timely book. Free speech has long been one of American's most revered freedoms. Yet now, more than ever, free speech is reshaping America’s social and political landscape even as it is coming under attack. Bestselling author and critically acclaimed journalist Ellis Cose wades into the debate to reveal how this Constitutional right has been coopted by the wealthy and politically corrupt. It is no coincidence that historically huge disparities in income have occurred at times when moneyed interests increasingly control political dialogue. Over the past four years, Donald Trump’s accusations of “fake news,” the free use of negative language against minority groups, “cancel culture,” and blatant xenophobia have caused Americans to question how far First Amendment protections can—and should—go. Cose offers an eye-opening wholly original examination of the state of free speech in America today, litigating ideas that touch on every American’s life. Social media meant to bring us closer, has become a widespread disseminator of false information keeping people of differing opinions and political parties at odds. The nation—and world—watches in shock as white nationalism rises, race and gender-based violence spreads, and voter suppression widens. The problem, Cose makes clear, is that ordinary individuals have virtually no voice at all. He looks at the danger of hyper-partisanship and how the discriminatory structures that determine representation in the Senate and the electoral college threaten the very concept of democracy. He argues that the safeguards built into the Constitution to protect free speech and democracy have instead become instruments of suppression by an unfairly empowered political minority. But we can take our rights back, he reminds us. Analyzing the experiences of other countries, weaving landmark court cases together with a critical look at contemporary applications, and invoking the lessons of history, including the Great Migration, Cose sheds much-needed light on this cornerstone of American culture and offers a clarion call for activism and change.
Download or read book Saving the News written by Martha Minow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As traditional for-profit news media in the United States declines in economic viability and sheer numbers of outlets and staff, what does and what should the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press mean? The book examines the current news ecosystem in the U.S. and chronicles historical developments in government involvement in shaping the industry. It argues that initiatives by the government and by private-sector actors are not only permitted but called for as transformations in technology, economics, and communications jeopardize the production and distribution of and trust in news and the very existence of local news reporting. It presents ten proposals for change to help preserve the free press essential to our democratic society"--
Download or read book Lessons in Censorship written by Catherine J. Ross and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-19 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American public schools often censor controversial student speech that the Constitution protects. Lessons in Censorship brings clarity to a bewildering array of court rulings that define the speech rights of young citizens in the school setting. Catherine J. Ross examines disputes that have erupted in our schools and courts over the civil rights movement, war and peace, rights for LGBTs, abortion, immigration, evangelical proselytizing, and the Confederate flag. She argues that the failure of schools to respect civil liberties betrays their educational mission and threatens democracy. From the 1940s through the Warren years, the Supreme Court celebrated free expression and emphasized the role of schools in cultivating liberty. But the Burger, Rehnquist, and Roberts courts retreated from that vision, curtailing certain categories of student speech in the name of order and authority. Drawing on hundreds of lower court decisions, Ross shows how some judges either misunderstand the law or decline to rein in censorship that is clearly unconstitutional, and she powerfully demonstrates the continuing vitality of the Supreme Court’s initial affirmation of students’ expressive rights. Placing these battles in their social and historical context, Ross introduces us to the young protesters, journalists, and artists at the center of these stories. Lessons in Censorship highlights the troubling and growing tendency of schools to clamp down on off-campus speech such as texting and sexting and reveals how well-intentioned measures to counter verbal bullying and hate speech may impinge on free speech. Throughout, Ross proposes ways to protect free expression without disrupting education.
Download or read book Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years 1870 1920 written by David M. Rabban and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most American historians and legal scholars incorrectly assume that controversies and litigation about free speech began abruptly during World War I. However, there was substantial debate about free speech issues between the Civil War and World War I. Important free speech controversies, often involving the activities of sex reformers and labor unions, preceded the Espionage Act of 1917. Scores of legal cases presented free speech issues to Justices Holmes and Brandeis. A significant organization, the Free Speech League, became a principled defender of free expression two decades before the establishment of the ACLU in 1920. World War I produced a major transformation in American liberalism. Progressives who had viewed constitutional rights as barriers to needed social reforms came to appreciate the value of political dissent during its wartime repression. They subsequently misrepresented the prewar judicial hostility to free speech claims and obscured prior libertarian defenses of free speech based on commitments to individual autonomy.
Download or read book What is Wrong with the First Amendment written by Steven H. Shiffrin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-06 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that America's relationship with the First Amendment jeopardizes privacy, equality, fair trials and democracy.
Download or read book The Heritage Guide to the Constitution written by David F. Forte and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-16 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark work of more than one hundred scholars, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution is a unique line-by-line analysis explaining every clause of America's founding charter and its contemporary meaning. In this fully revised second edition, leading scholars in law, history, and public policy offer more than two hundred updated and incisive essays on every clause of the Constitution. From the stirring words of the Preamble to the Twenty-seventh Amendment, you will gain new insights into the ideas that made America, important debates that continue from our Founding, and the Constitution's true meaning for our nation
Download or read book Purchasing Submission written by Philip Hamburger and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a leading constitutional scholar, an important study of a powerful mode of government control: the offer of money and other privileges to secure submission to unconstitutional power. The federal government increasingly regulates by using money and other benefits to induce private parties and states to submit to its conditions. It thereby enjoys a formidable power, which sidesteps a wide range of constitutional and political limits. Conditions are conventionally understood as a somewhat technical problem of Òunconstitutional conditionsÓÑthose that threaten constitutional rightsÑbut at stake is something much broader and more interesting. With a growing ability to offer vast sums of money and invaluable privileges such as licenses and reduced sentences, the federal government increasingly regulates by placing conditions on its generosity. In this way, it departs not only from the ConstitutionÕs rights but also from its avenues of binding power, thereby securing submission to conditions that regulate, that defeat state laws, that commandeer and reconfigure state governments, that extort, and even that turn private and state institutions into regulatory agents. The problem is expansive, including almost the full range of governance. Conditions need to be recognized as a new mode of powerÑan irregular pathwayÑby which government induces Americans to submit to a wide range of unconstitutional arrangements. Purchasing Submission is the first book to recognize this problem. It explores the danger in depth and suggests how it can be redressed with familiar and practicable legal tools.
