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Smolla Argues Before The Highest Court: Cross-Burning Case Explores Free-Speech Controversy, John G. Douglass
Smolla Argues Before The Highest Court: Cross-Burning Case Explores Free-Speech Controversy, John G. Douglass
Law Faculty Publications
A First Amendment advocate's greatest burden can be his own client. Those clients range from the offbeat to the dangerous, from pornographers to neo-Nazis. Yet in standing up for the disreputable client, the free speech advocate stands for one of more cherished freedoms: "If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable." Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 414 (1989). As one of the nation's leading First Amendment advocates, Allen Professor Rodney Smolla understands that burden …
The Communications Decency Act: Aborting The First Amendment?, Sheryl L. Herndon L. Herndon
The Communications Decency Act: Aborting The First Amendment?, Sheryl L. Herndon L. Herndon
Richmond Journal of Law & Technology
On February 8, 1996, President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law and explained that the legislation would "stimulate investment, promote competition, [and] provide open access for all citizens to the Information Superhighway." However, contrary to the goal of "opening wide the door to the Information Age," provisions of the Act violate the Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech by imposing far-reaching new federal criminal liabilities on Americans who exercise their free speech rights on the Internet. In particular, a little-noticed provision of the Act, which expands an 1873 law banning abortion-related speech by criminalizing Internet …