First Amendment Watch

"There is nothing so fretting and vexatious, nothing so justly terrible to tyrants, and their tools and abettors, as a free press."

--Samuel Adams writing as "Populus" in the Boston Gazette, 14 March 1768

"To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression."

--James Madison, Report on the Virginia Resolutions, 1800

". . . a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."

--Justice William Brennan, New York Times v. Sullivan, 1964

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of the nation, must begin by subduing the freedom of speech."

--Cato, Essay 15, 4 February 1720; New-York Weekly Journal, 18 February 1733

"Those who won our independence believed that . . . freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensible to the discovery and spread of political truth."

--Justice Louis Brandeis, concurring, Whitney v. California (1927)

"[The] right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right."

--James Madison, Report on the Virginia Resolutions, 1800

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion."

--Justice Robert Jackson, Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)

"[T]he fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they [the Founders] eschewed silence coerced by law—the argument of force in its worst form."

--Justice Louis Brandeis, concurring, Whitney v. California (1927)

"I think we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country."

--Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, dissenting, Abrams v. United States (1919)

Round-Up

Mapping First Amendment Conflicts

From hamlets to big cities, from social media to the White House, First Amendment conflicts arise nearly every day in the United States. They can involve libel suits against a big media organization, an attempt by state legislators to restrict demonstrations, public officials blocking Twitter followers they don’t like, and much more. The endless challenges to freedom of expression raise[Read More…]

April 20, 2018 — Round-Up, Top Stories

First Amendment: By the Numbers

With controversies swirling daily about the freedom of speech and press, what is the state of public support for the First Amendment? Several nonprofit organizations—the Newseum First Amendment Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the Knight Foundation—conduct surveys of public attitudes about the freedom of expression. Most recently, the Newseum Institute has also initiated a First Amendment Report Card, enlisting a[Read More…]

November 5, 2017 — Assembly, Below the Fold, News Gathering, Round-Up

First Amendment Watch

Round-Up

Mapping First Amendment Conflicts

First Amendment: By the Numbers

“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Sign up for our newsletter

The Law

Resources

Video

Support our mission to promote free speech