Of the Freedom of Speech and the First Amendment

Document Type:Essay

Subject Area:Law

Document 1

All in all, there are many challenges to the idea of “freedom of speech” as offered in the Constitution. These are discussed in the subsequent paragraphs. The greatest challenge that faces the idea of freedom of speech and the provisions of the First Amendments is the interpretations of the very wordings of the document. Ideally, the original wording in the initial drafts of the document had the ideals of protecting freedom of "speech" and "press". At the time of its drafting, the words essentially implied or denoted different ideas as they would in the current age. While the First Amendment is essentially supposed to be a binding contract between the citizens of the United States of America and the government; some statesmen argue that it is not a suicidal contract that must be followed rigidly.

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Thus, the government has been in constant attempt to reduce freedom of speech and expression by increasing surveillance upon the citizens. For instance, the USA Patriot Act of October 2007 is alleged to be a counter-measure against terrorism. Researchers, however, report that the Act seeks to increase government surveillance capabilities to different levels of communication. Edward Snowden was forced into exile for leaking information relating to the spy software such as PRISM that collected information from several sites; including Facebook, YouTube, and Microsoft. There is thus an act the prohibits intentional destruction of the flags in a demeaning manner. Looking at such an act from the perspective of speech, expression, and communication; the act is one-sided. Allowing the government's agenda to be propagated; while at the same time suppressing expressionism through the same is a form of limitation to the rights and freedoms of the citizens.

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