 |
| English: The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution Česky: Originál Listiny práv, prvních deseti dodatků k Ústavě Spojených států amerických Deutsch: Die Bill of Rights genannten ersten zehn Zusatzartikel zur US-amerikanischen Verfassung, die den Bürgern bestimmte Grundrechte garantieren Español: La Carta de Derechos de los Estados Unidos, el término por el que se conocen las diez primeras enmiendas de la Constitución de los Estados Unidos de América (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
When Trump speaks, it is as if the government were speaking. He can ordinarily say what he wishes. He can whip up frenzied opposition to Obamacare or NFL players. Yet there may nevertheless be judicially enforceable limitations.
If the president’s words are designed to trigger the legal suppression of citizen speech, he may likely be violating the First Amendment. The relevant case is the Supreme Court’s 1963 opinion in Bantam Books, Inc. v. Rhode Island. The decision concerned a Rhode Island commission charged with educating the public about obscene publications and recommending to the state attorney general the “prosecution of purveyors of obscenity,” as the court’s decision put it. As a formal matter, the commission did no more than engage in government speech that “exhorts booksellers and advises them of their legal rights,” but the Supreme Court nevertheless had no difficulty enjoining the commission’s activities, because “the record amply demonstrates that the Commission deliberately set about to achieve the suppression of publications deemed ‘objectionable’ and succeeded in its aim.” The commission “was in fact a scheme of state censorship effectuated by extralegal sanctions,” the court declared.
No comments:
Post a Comment