5 ms·
It's worth noting that while your description of free speech in the USA is somewhat accurate, the USA actually has extremely relaxed restrictions for speech adv
by baddox 7y ago
It's worth noting that while your description of free speech in the USA is somewhat accurate, the USA actually has extremely relaxed restrictions for speech advocating violence. The current federal standard is "imminent lawless action," which means that speech cannot be restricted unless the violence it's advocating is likely to happen immediately. As far as I can tell, you can freely broadcast speech of the form "let's get together sometime and do a bunch of violence against so-and-so." This comes from a Supreme Court case about a Ku Klux Klan rally where the leader addressed the group and literally advocated organized violence against minorities for political purposes (what many would call terrorism).
- SamReidHughes 7y agoThat's not the only exception. You can't make "true threats." There are laws against conspiracy to commit crimes, which you might have described ("let's get together sometime") in your example.
- marcusverus 7y agoConspiracy requires more than speech. Two accountants who agree over drinks that "the shareholders are assholes, we should defraud them!" are not commiting a crime until they take some action past speech alone. Based on a quick Google search of the legal elements of conspiracy crimes, you need an actual agreement/plan to commit a crime and some consummating act that shows intent to follow through. Point being, these aren't really speech restrictions.
- SamReidHughes 7y agoApparently not, see U.S. v. Shabini, so an overt act requirement isn't a consequence of the 1st Amendment rule; just many laws (but not all) happen to require one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Shabani https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Shabani