On keeping the republic
“Take it upon [yourself] to learn the basics . . . . [K]ids need . . . to learn history. Because kids say to me all the time when I say something from history: ‘How should I know about that? I wasn’t born.’ Oh, really? So nothing happened before you were born? . . . Kids need to learn history so they can put themselves in the proper place, which is of great insignificance . . . . The problem with kids today is not too little self-esteem, it’s too much. And history, I think, learning a big picture, is very important in that.”
Source: Bill Maher spoke with Christine Barbour and Gerald C. Wright on May 9, 2005.
The Court’s rulings attempt to give the press some leeway in its actions. Without Sullivan, investigative journalism would never have been able to uncover the role of the United States in Vietnam, for instance, or the Watergate cover-up. Freedom of the press, and thus the public’s interest in keeping a critical eye on government, are clearly the winners here. The Court’s view is that when individuals put themselves in the public domain, the public’s interest in the truth outweighs the protection of their privacy.
The Right To A Fair Trial
Freedom of the press also confronts head-on another Bill of Rights guarantee, the right to a fair trial. Media coverage of a crime can make it very difficult to find an “impartial jury,” as required by the Sixth Amendment. On the other side of this conflict, however, is the “public’s right to know.” The Sixth Amendment promises a “speedy and public trial,” and many journalists interpret this provision to mean that the proceedings ought to be open. On the whole the Court has ruled in favor of media access to most stages of legal proceedings and courts have been extremely reluctant to uphold gag orders, which would impose prior restraint on the press during those proceedings.54
Censorship on the Internet
Lawmakers do not always know how to deal with new outlets for expression as they become available. Modern technology has presented the judiciary with a host of free speech issues the founders never anticipated. The latest to make it to the courts is the question of censorship on the Internet. Some web sites contain explicit sexual material, obscene language, and other content that many people find objectionable. Because children often find their way onto the Internet on their own, parents and groups of other concerned citizens have clamored for regulation of this medium. Congress obliged in 1996 with the Communications Decency Act, which made it illegal to knowingly send or display indecent material over the Internet. In 1997 the Supreme Court ruled that such provisions constituted a violation of free speech, and that communication over the Internet, which it called a modern “town crier,” is subject to the same protections as nonelectronic expression.55 When Congress tried again with a more narrowly tailored bill, the Child Online Protection Act, the Court struck it down, too.56
The Court has not always ruled on the side of a completely unregulated Internet. While not restricting the creation of content, the Supreme Court in 2003 upheld the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which required public libraries that received federal funds to use filtering software to block material that is deemed harmful to minors, such as pornography.57 However, these filters can create some problems. Many companies and institutions use them to screen offensive incoming email, but such filters often have unwanted consequences, blocking even legitimate messages and publications.58 The Internet can also have the effect of freeing people from censorship, however. As many people who have worked on their high school newspapers know, the Court has ruled that student publications are subject to censorship by school officials if the restrictions serve an educational purpose. The Internet, however, offers students an alternative medium of publication that the courts say is not subject to censorship.59
The increasing use of the Internet not just as a source of information but also as a mechanism for people to download books, music, movies, and other forms of entertainment has set up another clash of rights. This conflict is between authors and creators of content, who claim a copyright to their works, and the public, who want to access those works, frequently without paying full fare for their use. Two bills, one in the House (the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA) and one in the Senate (the Protect IP Act, or PIPA), attempted to address this issue in 2012 by requiring Internet providers to monitor their users and block access to international sites that share files. Companies like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, which depend on open Internet access, opposed the legislation, claiming it would require them to censor their users’ practices and stifle free speech and innovation. Many of them went dark or threatened to do so in protest of the bills, and leaders in both houses postponed votes, effectively killing the proposed legislation in its current form.60 The issue of the protection of intellectual property rights on the Internet remains unresolved.
The question of whether the Internet needs to be regulated to ensure protection of people’s personal data privacy has become an important one in Congress, especially since we have learned that users of some sites, such as Facebook, have been manipulated into giving up their own data as well as information about everyone in their address books to firms like the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica. Unfortunately, congressional hearings revealed that members of Congress know next to nothing about how social media works, making it likely that we will leave the wolves in charge of the digital henhouse.
In Your Own Words
Explain the value of freedom of expression and how its protections have been tested.
The Right to Bear Arms: Providing for militias to secure the state or securing an individual right?
The Second Amendment to the Constitution reads, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” This amendment has been the subject of some of the fiercest debates in American politics. Originally it was a seemingly straightforward effort by opponents of the Constitution to keep the federal government in check by limiting the power of standing, or permanent, armies. Over time it has become a rallying point for those who want to engage in sporting activities involving guns, those who believe that firearms are necessary for self-defense, those who oppose contemporary American policy and want to use revolution to return to what they think were the goals of the founders, and those who simply don’t believe that it is government’s business to make decisions about who can own guns.
Why Is the Right to Bear Arms Valuable?
During the earliest days of American independence, the chief source of national stability was the state militia system—armies of able-bodied men who could be counted on to assemble, with their own guns, to defend their country from external and internal threats, whether from the British, Native Americans, or local insurrection. Local militias were seen as far less dangerous to the fledgling republic than a standing army under national leadership. Such an army could seize control and create a military dictatorship, depriving citizens of their hard-won rights.
The restructuring of the U.S. military, and the growing evidence that under civilian control it did not pose a threat to the liberties of American citizens, caused many people to view the Second Amendment as obsolete. Although the militia system that gave rise to the amendment is now defunct, supporters of rights for gun owners, such as the National Rifle Association (NRA), argue that the amendment is as relevant as ever. They offer at least four reasons the right to bear arms should be unregulated. First, they argue that hunting and other leisure activities involving guns do not hurt anybody (except, of course, the hunted) and are an important part of American culture. Second, gun rights advocates