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Google+In Copyright and the First Amendment: The Unexplored, Unbroken Historical Practice, Terry Hart does an excellent job of exploring why the First Amendment has never been held to interfere with the enforcement of copyright, including pre-publication injunctive relief.
free speech
Privacy and the silo/filter/echo problem
The push for “privacy” that demands an ability to allow us to restrict who sees what–enabled, for example, by new tools in Facebook and Google+–also creates and reinforces silos (filter bubbles, echo chambers) that prevent our exposure to different ideas. But this move highlights potential conflicts between a number of rights: freedom of association and freedom of speech and the press (both from the First Amendment) and rights to privacy (from the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments). What is this conflict? Is it real? How can we (begin) to resolve it?
Thinking about privacy and the First Amendment
This post is about Eugene Volokh’s article on free speech and privacy in relation to Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis’s 1890 law review article, “The Right to Privacy.” This highly influential piece advocated for “the fundamental right to be let alone.” But is it impossible to reconcile such a right with an equally compelling right to free speech?
Free speech and broadcasting: Cohen v. California and FCC v. Pacifica Foundation
Balancing strong First Amendment (“free speech”) speech protections with the desire to protect the delicate sensibilities of America’s youth is always a complex task. Two seminal Supreme Court cases–Cohen v. California and FCC v. Pacifica Foundation–illustrate the struggle the Court has had to find the right path.
Defamation, SLAPP, and medicine: Doctor’s Data, Inc. v. Barrett et al
Doctor’s Data filed a defamation lawsuit against Quackwatch and Dr. Stephen Barrett. Should this be considered a SLAPP lawsuit intended only to silence their critics?
The long history of restrictions on speech
It’s too easy to look at recent trends, or project current biases, on the law, and assume that the trend extends backwards in time in a similar fashion. This is a useful lesson to keep in mind whether one is look at law and technology, or Constitutional issues.
