I blogged several items yesterday about Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. I’m still digesting the implications of the majority opinion, but it tentatively strikes me as somewhat troubling: It does allow a content-based restriction on speech by Americans, and while I think it can be limited to speech coordinated with designated foreign terrorist organizations — […]
Tag Archives | Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project
Avoiding Bad Reactions by Foreign Nations as a Justification for Speech Restrictions?
Here’s a passage from Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project that would be very troubling if the restriction weren’t limited to speech coordinated with groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations — and may be very troubling even given that limitation. The Court is explaining why the restricted speech may jeopardize the government interest in “combating terrorism,” […]
Speech That Aids Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and Strict Scrutiny
The boys are behaving better, and I have a chance now to return to the Humanitarian Law Project decision. In this post, I thought I’d approach the opinion from a different perspective. Let’s look at the general problem: American speakers can do many things that help foreign terrorist organizations, both those that are directly fighting […]
Humanitarian Law Project and Strict Scrutiny
[UPDATE: I have since added a post that takes a different — and, I think, more helpful, look — at the strict scrutiny test as it is affected by Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project; you can see it here.] The Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project majority acknowledges that the law was a content-based restriction on […]
Content Discrimination and Humanitarian Law Project
The Supreme Court has long distinguished content-based speech restrictions, which are almost never upheld (when they’re imposed by the government as sovereign rather as proprietor, and deal with speech outside the established First Amendment exceptions), from content-neutral speech restrictions, which will often be upheld if they leave open ample alternative channels for communication. And the […]
Content Discrimination and the First Amendment (Including the “Secondary Effects” Doctrine)
A post on Humanitarian Law Project and content discrimination reminded me that I’d never blogged my summary of the content-based/content-neutral speech restrictions under current First Amendment law. So here it is, extracted from my First Amendment textbook. (Note that all this assumes that the government is regulating speech acting as sovereign — not as proprietor, […]
Freedom of Speech and Generally Applicable Statutes
Today’s Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project says something that’s important for speech restrictions generally. Some laws ban a wide range of conduct that causes a certain kind of harm, and include speech that tends to causes the harm — and thus triggers the law — because of what the speech communicates. Thus, for instance, A […]
Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project
The Court just handed down its decision in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. There’s a lot there that’s important for free speech law, even for contexts far outside national security and anti-terrorism laws. And while the Court rejected the free speech claim (6-3, with the majority consisting of the conservatives plus Justice Stevens), there’s some […]