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Duke Law Journal

2009

Freedom of speech

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Law

Cybersieves, Derek E. Bambauer Dec 2009

Cybersieves, Derek E. Bambauer

Duke Law Journal

This Article offers a process-based method to assess Internet censorship that is compatible with different value sets about what content should be blocked. Whereas China's Internet censorship receives considerable attention, censorship in the United States and other democratic countries is largely ignored. The Internet is increasingly fragmented by nations' different value judgments about what content is unacceptable. Countries differ not in their intent to censor material-from political dissent in Iran to copyrighted songs in America-but in the content they target, how precisely they block it, and how involved their citizens are in these choices. Previous scholars have analyzed Internet censorship …


Constraining Public Employee Speech: Government’S Control Of Its Workers’ Speech To Protect Its Own Expression, Helen Norton Oct 2009

Constraining Public Employee Speech: Government’S Control Of Its Workers’ Speech To Protect Its Own Expression, Helen Norton

Duke Law Journal

This Article identifies a key doctrinal shift in courts' treatment Of public employees' First Amendment claims-a shift that imperils the public's interest in transparent government as well as the free speech rights of more than twenty million government workers. In the past, courts interpreted the First Amendment to permit governmental discipline of public employee speech on matters of public interest only when such speech undermined the government employer's interest in efficiently providing public services. In contrast, courts now increasingly focus on-and defer to-government's claim to control its workers' expression to protect its own speech. More specifically, courts increasingly permit government …


Remembering Democracy In The Debate Over Election Reform, Matthew Michael Calabria Feb 2009

Remembering Democracy In The Debate Over Election Reform, Matthew Michael Calabria

Duke Law Journal

In FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., the United States Supreme Court held that the federal Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act violated the First Amendment right to free speech because the statute restricted a form of political speech known as issue advocacy. In attempting to protect this right from government intrusion, however, the Court improperly excluded considerations of democracy from its free speech analysis. The opinion consequently misrepresented the nature of the right to free speech for two independent but related reasons. First, because preserving a well-functioning democracy is the primary reason free speech is protected, the right to free …