MEDC 5350MEDIA REGULATIONS AND ORGANIZATION

Week 2 “Almost all human beings have an infinite capacity for taking things for granted.” — Aldous Huxley

Why was the First Amendment created

in the first place?

Why was the First Amendment created in the first place?

The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenburg in 1450 in Germany is hailed as the key event that brought about modernism

Printers afterwards had to be licensed as the Crown felt threatened. All presses had to be registered and those caught operating illegally were faced with punishment and fines or death if they printed or distributed outlawed text

In 1643, the power of prior review shifted from the king’s officers to the British Parliament

However, in 1644, English poet John Milton argued that an open marketplace of ideas advanced the interests of society and mankind… so where did he get his ideas from?

The state of natureThomas Aquinas - Brought attention to a statement of the Apostle Paul made in his Letter to the Romans states that "natural law” contrasted with the Mosaic Law posited on Mount Sinai followed by Jews as a moral code to live by. While the Christians did not follow

the Law of Moses there is virtue of knowing it (some of its central commandments) and obeying it (partially) "by nature.”

Thomas HobbesThomas Hobbes“During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man".

Therefore every person has a natural right or liberty to do anything one thinks necessary for preserving one's own life as it is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”

The state of nature exists at all times among independent countries, over whom there is no law except for those same precepts or laws of nature (Leviathan, Chapters XIII, XXX end)

John Locke Late 17th century – John Locke argues

government censorship was an improper exercise of power

People have fundamental natural rights, including life, personal liberty and self-fulfillment

He was an empiricist who advanced the “social contract” theory

The Social Contract philosophy questions the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Individuals agree to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to a ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights.

John Locke“The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.”-The Second Treatise of Civil Government, 1690

“The rule and standard for all law-making is the public good. If something isn’t useful to the commonwealth then it may not be required by law, however indifferent it is.”-A Letter about Toleration. 1689.

Rousseau, a French political philosopher said all people are born free and equal but, unless constrained by morality and law, would become uncivilized and violent

People accordingly form a social contract in which they exchange some of their freedom for a limited government that advances the collective interest.

Because the people remain sovereign and do not surrender their rights, government censorship violates the fundamental social contract and can never be justified

The state of nature“The natural man lives for himself; he is the unit, the whole, dependent only on himself and on his like. The citizen is but the numerator of a fraction, whose value depends on its denominator; his value depends upon the whole, that is, on the community. Good social institutions are those best fitted to make a man unnatural, to exchange his independence for dependence, to merge the unit in the group, so that he no longer regards himself as one, but as a part of the whole, and is only conscious of the common life.”Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Presses in the colonies were licensed, and government censors previewed publications until the 1720s. The crime of seditious libel was imposed on those who published dissenting opinion opposing the government.

British common law traditions also came under attack. The most renowned case is that of John Peter Zenger, the publisher of one of two newspapers in the colony of New York. Zenger, a German immigrant, clearly had broken the sedition law by printing criticism of colonial Gov. William Cosby. Cosby jailed Zenger to stop the attacks. In Zenger’s defense, attorney Andrew Hamilton argued that no one should be jailed for publishing truthful and fair criticism of government. The jury agreed and acquitted Zenger in 1734.

It seems clear that the authors of the First Amendment intended to provide a ban on prior restraints but not as clear regarding sedition, blasphemy and libel.

Once again, the First Amendment

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; OR ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE PRESS; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES.

The Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791

But there are exceptions and interpretations…

How much protection does the First Amendment actually give us?

The Supreme Court has interpreted it to mean different things in different situations and is not absolute, for example: The Supreme Court can determine who the media is

and what “abridging” means. The Supreme Court has held different doctrines with

regard to freedom of speech from “the “bad tendency” doctrine (Patterson v. Colorado, 1907) to the "clear and present danger” doctrine (Schenck v. United States, 1919) which was replaced in 1969 by Brandenburg v. Ohio, and the test to determining whether the speech would provoke an "imminent lawless action".