by Shawn Wells

Created on: September 25, 2010   Last Updated: November 30, 2010

Freedom of speech is the right to express information or opinions freely, without restriction or persecution.  Freedom of speech is a basic right held in the United States, provided for in both First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.  The First Amendment was adopted back in 1791, the first of all amendments to the constitution, providing for a host of rights the founding fathers felt important, including: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech."  This freedom exists for us in the spoken word but also in the written word, or even our actions.

So why, then, can't we always say whatever we want to say?  How is this freedom?

Your freedoms are just as important as mine, and vice versa.  That being so, I should not be allowed to say things that curtail or step on your freedoms.  I shouldn't be able to send hate mail to my neighbors about you.  I shouldn't be allowed to tell people you abuse your wife and young daughter, when you don't.  How can you be exercise your freedoms, if I'm allowed to use my words to limit your freedom?

Obviously there should be, and are, restrictions on what a person can freely say.  The most famous of restrictions on this right is the "crowded theatre" metaphor used by Oliver Wendell Holmes in his 1919 United States Supreme Court decision for the case Schenck v. United States.  "The most stringent protection of free speech," Holmes wrote, "would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic."  His written opinion goes on to create the "clear and present danger" exception to the right of free speech.  "The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."

In other words, a person is free to say whatever they want, do whatever they want, so long as it does not impair the rights of another person or endanger their life.  Again, it's a matter of determining where one person's rights end, and another person's rights begin.  The determining factor here is which right is greater.  Obviously, your right not to be hurt or killed outweighs the right of someone to stand up and yell "Fire!" when there is no fire.

The 1925 United States Supreme Court case Gitlow v. New York

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