shakran

This one's gonna be long. Bear with me.

You can yell fire in a crowded theater and you will not be punished for your word. You will be punished for inciting a general panic. The government will not prevent you from yelling it, but you are responsible for the consequences of your actions. In fact, if I yelled "fire" in a crowded theater, and no one believed there actually was a fire, and no one moved from their seat, I would not be guilty of a crime. The ushers would, however, have the right to make me leave the theater since I'd be disturbing the patrons.

Let me give you another example. If I called a hit man and told him "I want my wife killed" I would not be punished for what I said. I would be punished for the actions I attempted to cause.

In other words, I'd be punished for conspiring to have my wife killed, not for expressing an idea - i.e. I can call you up and say "I want my wife killed" but if I know you are not a hit man and I am not trying to get you to kill my wife I won't get punished (except by my wife if she finds out ) However, the fact that I knowingly contacted a hit man and the purpose of the statement "I want my wife killed" was to actually get my wife killed, then I could be punished for trying to have her killed.

Because the threat is an assault, not because of the speech itself.

I can say "I want the president to die" or "I wish someone would kill the president." If, however, I say "I'm going to kill the president" then I am committing a crime - not of speech, but of assault. An assault is defined as a threat to do harm to another. Obviously, threatening to kill the president falls under the definition of assault. The main difference between me saying "I'm going to kill the president" and me saying "I'm going to kill my boss" is that my boss does not have the secret service to swoop down on me and take care of the situation.

Being even more precise, there is a law that says you can not threaten to kill the president. However, in Watts v. United States, 1969, the supreme court found that it's only a crime to threaten to kill the president if you actually mean that you intend to kill the president. i.e. I can say "I feel like killing Bush" or even "I'm going to kill Bush" - but unless a prosecutor can establish that I actually INTEND to kill him (which obviously I do not) then I am not guilty of anything but poor taste.



Oh sure you can. Bush lies about Kerry all the time. I don't see him being prosecuted. (yes I know that falls under the public figure exemption). I can lie about you right now. I can say you're a child molester if I want to, and my speech is protected. However, the consequences of my speech are not protected.

In other words, if I said you were a child molester, and it got out, and you then didn't get a job because the employer thought you were a child molester, you could sue me for slander and/or defamation of character.

If, however, I said you were a child molester, and no one believed me, and your life was not negatively effected in any way because of what I said, then I'm free and clear.

I should also note that libel and slander and defamation of character are torts, not crimes, and as such fall under civil, not criminal, law. In other words, even if you sued me for what I said and you won, I still would not be guilty of a crime.

You should also be aware, btw, that one of the requirements for proving a libel/slander/defamation case is that the person you are claiming libeled you was negligent in the libel. In other words, they have to have known, or been in a situation where a reasonable and prudent person would have known or suspected that the statement was true. That means that if I read the AP wires tomorrow and it says "Rekna is a child molestor" and I then tell someone, I cannot be held accountable for the libel because the AP is a respected and trusted news organization, meaning a resonable and prudent person reading the AP would have no reason to doubt the veracity of the statement.



hehe. Don't even get me started there. If you want a strict interpretation of the 2nd, it limits all firearms to those in a well regulated militia.