Question

The government can ban speech if the speech advocates the breaking of criminal laws or encourages other illegal activity:

Question 3 options:



A. If the speech can endanger national security if the government uses the least restrictive means to prohibit the speech and permits the portions of the speech which does not endanger national security.




B. If the speech advocates illegal activity if such activity presents a clear and present danger to national security such as encouraging people to avoid the draft.




C. If the speech will lead to imminent lawlessness or it is so provocative to the audience that it is a fighting word which is a kind of insult so severe that an average addressee will want to fight.




D. If the speech encourages physical or sexual abuse of children or the disabled.

Answer 1

The correct answer is B.

The right of freedom of speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, can be limited by the goverment under very specific circumstances. Such was established in the landmark decision, reached by the US Supreme Court in 1919 in the case Schenck v. United States

Some activists were convicted during WWI because they were handing out fliers, to draft-age men, encouraging them to resist and to obstruct such procedure. The Supreme Court justices considered that such actions posed a clear and present danger on national security, explaining that the circumstances of wartime imposed greater restrictions on free speech than if compared to peacetime, because of the threat of greater dangers.