Iso, You are correct and you are also not correct. It is not an easy question, and truly, volumes have been written and continue to be written on the first amendment.
Now, to summarize briefly, let me try to boil it down to this: Yes, the first amendment, as all of the bill of rights, was first written to protect the people from actions of the government. And, just because you may end up in court does not mean that it is a matter of the first amendment. What it takes is the government in some form restricting your "protected speech". But, if the government has a "compelling interest" in restricting it, then it is OK. A good example is when there really is a fire in the theater. But if you yell "Fire" and there is no fire, then your tail is in trouble. It is also important to recognize that not all speech is "protected speech".
Lets look at the private side of things. You say that SusieQ is a slut. SusieQ then sues you for defamation and you claim that the first amendment protects you .... WRONG! The first amendment has nothing to do with it. That is a dispute between two private folks and the govt is not involved at all.
A more down to home example is when our resident thread lice say things which are intended only to hurt this company, and which are completely false. They claim they have a first amendment right to post such things and that noone can stop them. Totally WRONG! What they have is a contract right between them and SI. As long as they pay for the service and do not violate the terms of service, then SI allows them to post. So how does one get them to stop? Well, that becomes a question of breaking them of sucking eggs by suing their asses in tort for defamation and libel. Presumably after they lose a bunch of money in court, they will learn that sort of behavior is expensive.
OK, so now you ask, how can you get such folks in court when they hide behind an anonymous name and noone really knows who they are? That is easier than you might think. Even though they may think that they are anonymous, they are not. They can easily be traced by SI, and as we have recently seen with Yahoo, the service provider is more than willing to cooperate and give over the information. And, the not so recent case of Maxwell v. US set the rule that anonymity on the internet is NOT protected by the fourth amendment either (That is the one that protects us from unreasonable searches and siezures). So, the bottom line here is that neither the things they say nor their own cowardice are protected by the Constitution, even as much as they would like it to. *Heh Heh Heh* |
