Highest Rated Comments


BolshevikMuppet168 karma

First of all, this is content neutral - the government could only place limits on spending, not on specific ideas.

If you're engaged enough in this discussion to be doing an AMA, I'm going to assume you've read the ACLU's objection to that very idea offered in an amendment from Mark Udall. So I'll ask the direct questions:

(1). Are you not concerned that allowing limits on spending would allow a backdoor to outright censorship? The government cannot ban speech, but they can make it impossible (or impracticable) to disseminate?

(2). If you're only including expenditures outside of the normal course of business (presumably you do not aim to allow them to ban Google from going dark, despite that being the equivalent of an ad) aren't you giving an awful lot of power to established media? Couldn't the Koch brothers buy a few cable stations, or Fox News simply run ads against Democrats for free?

the limitations could only be "reasonable" and related to spending, so could not be used to censor political speech.

Maybe I'm being too generous, but I'm assuming there was a lawyer somewhere along this process who briefed you on just how bad it is to have ambiguous language in a constitutional amendment. How is reasonableness determined? Remember that once you get rid of First Amendment protections, there's no strict scrutiny, so what's your test going to be?

The decision was that because corporations have the same rights as individuals and because campaign

Okay, maybe there wasn't a lawyer anywhere in your meetings. That's concerning, but let's at least correct this. The decision was not based on "corporations have the same rights as individuals, and individuals have the right to free speech." The only way you can arrive at that understanding is if you haven't read any part of the case itself. Or spoken to any lawyer who has. Or read anything about it written by even opponents of it like Lawrence Lessig.

The decision was made based on the fact that the First Amendment protects speech itself, regardless of the source. So while that does mean that corporate speech has the same protection as individual speech (which is the same protection a political treatise written by my cat would have), it is not because "corporations have the same rights as individuals."

Our founders fought and died fighting against oligarchs to create a democratic nation. They did not write the first amendment with the intention of it being used to enable our country to become a plutocracy - that was clearly not their intent.

Oh please. If you want to get into an originalism argument, you should at least do something more (dare I say) original than "they didn't intend this because it's bad policy." Since this is /r/IAmA, and I have to ask a question, here it is:

Do you think the framers were incompetent? If they meant to restrict free speech protections to individuals (the people), why did they neglect to include that language? They include it in the Second Amendment, and the Fourth, and even elsewhere in the First Amendment (the right of the people to peaceably assemble). Why would they not write that "Congress shall not infringe the people's freedom of speech" if that's what they meant?

It would restore the First Amendment to its true intent.

"[T]he concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment, which was designed 'to secure "the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources,"’ and ‘"to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people"

Say what you want about disliking the Roberts Court. You're taking issue with the interpretation of the First Amendment of Justices Brennan, Stewart, Blackmun, and Powell.

It is necessary that we have boundaries on all sorts of "freedoms" in our society. For example, a store owner cannot deny someone service because of the color of their skin

Yeah, but that's like saying that the limits on Fourth Amendment privacy are reasonable because the Civil Rights Act exists. Limits on rights not found in the Constitution =/= limits on rights found in the constitution, do they?

nor should a billionaire or mega-corporation be able to buy the outcome of our elections, as they currently are

Do you honestly believe that winning an election in this country is simply a matter of spending so much that people automatically agree with your position? That the KKK, if it had enough money could get people to agree that we should repeal the 14th Amendment?

And if "too much" speech does that, is that not the choice of the American people to follow that speech? Where in this country do you believe there's a person whose ability to form their own opinion is destroyed by listening to too many ads?

The money buys the ability to test and put out a message that will put a candidate into office and ensure that the true actions of that politician are not seen or understood by the masses. Truth is drowned out.

Only if you assume that some huge portion of the voting population is preternaturally stupid and will believe, and do, whatever advertisements tell them to.

But if that's the problem, why are you stopping here? Isn't this just as big a problem, then, with the news media (which endorses candidates and selectively chooses what stories to run)? Isn't it a problem when Google opposes legislation?

If you want to limit everyone's voice to what I, individually, working alone can accomplish that's fine. But shouldn't you be bringing everyone down to my level? Shouldn't you be objecting to Jon Stewart's ability to persuade voters through his show, or Aaron Sorkin?

BolshevikMuppet60 karma

Specially speaking about DUI laws (or any apparent fourth amendment violations) it's because in Katz v. United States the Supreme Court traded the absolutism of being secure in our persons houses, papers, and effects for applying some protection to a broader set of potential rights.

Under a strict Fourth Amendment interpretation, wiretapping would never require a warrant, because once the phone signal leaves your house it's no longer covered. So, in Katz the Court said, basically "okay, but the Fourth Amendment is really about privacy, so we won't do "OMG it's in his house so it's absolutely inviolate" but we also won't do "it's not in his house so there's no way it could violate the Fourth Amendment."

DUI checkpoints are allowed because of the lower expectation of privacy, and the necessary safety concerns.

More worryingly (for some) is how broad the concept of a "consent" search has been taken. It's one thing if the police ask to come into your house and you say yes. In Colorado, the mere act of having a driver's license is consent to a breathalyzer or blood test if I'm pulled over and suspected of drunk driving.

But, I have no right to drive, so the state can put conditions on it. I have no right to fly, so I'm consenting to a TSA search when I go to the airport. The Fourth Amendment doesn't protect me from my voluntary waiver of the Fourth Amendment.

BolshevikMuppet16 karma

The best advice the OP or any other attorney (myself included) can give you would be to understand that the "constitutional lawyer" jobs are pretty rare, and "aspiring constitutional lawyers" are a dime a dozen in law school. A huge number of law students are there because they want to litigate constitutional issues, but outside of the criminal procedure amendments and the defense lawyers who litigate them, there aren't many jobs focused on constitutional law.

That's not to say that you shouldn't follow your dream, but if I had a dollar for every "aspiring constiutional lawyers" who works in civil litigation and hates it, I'd have my law school loans paid off.

BolshevikMuppet11 karma

The problem with Judge Forrest's ruling (and the legitimate basis for appeal) is that it extends standing to sue in a dangerous way. I'm on my phone, so I'll edit this with more information when I'm at a computer.

Edit:

All right then. The down and dirty is that in order to challenge a law, someone has to have "standing." What that means is that they have to have been harmed by the law. Usually, it's someone who has either been threatened with legal action, or actually been arrested. It's why you have to have "test cases." Until Rosa Parks is forced to the back of the bus, she can't bring suit about it.

The danger of Judge Forrest's ruling is that it granted standing to a group of people who haven't been threatened with any legal consequences. It granted standing on the basis that Chris Hedges changed his plans because he thought he might be punished. To give standing to anyone who thinks they might later be affected by a law is simply contrary to what standing means.

It would allow me (someone who hasn't flown in the last three years) to bring suit against the TSA by claiming I haven't flown because I thought they might violate my privacy if I did.

BolshevikMuppet10 karma

"Fighting words" is one of those terms of art that lawyers amongst themselves nod and understand but that doesn't really make immediate sense to a non-lawyer.

The basic rule is that speech which is meant to incite violence is not protected. But, that doesn't mean "speech that is meant to piss people off" it means "speech that is meant to encourage them to be violent." Restrictions on speech meant to piss people off would give the easily-offended a sort of heckler's veto.

Instead, the rule for what counts as "inciting violence" is pretty much limited to "I told this group of people not only that all African-Americans must die, but that they should right now go shoot some."