speech, freedom of

speech, freedom of,

Although speech is freer in the United States than in many societies, federal and state laws do restrict many kinds of expression. Some kinds of speech regarded as damaging to individual interests (e.g., libel and slanderlibel and slander,
in law, types of defamation. In common law, written defamation was libel and spoken defamation was slander. Today, however, there are no such clear definitions.
..... Click the link for more information. ) are limited primarily by the threat of torttort,
in law, the violation of some duty clearly set by law, not by a specific agreement between two parties, as in breach of contract. When such a duty is breached, the injured party has the right to institute suit for compensatory damages.
..... Click the link for more information.  action; other forms of speech (e.g., obscenityobscenity,
in law, anything that tends to corrupt public morals by its indecency. The moral concepts that the term connotes vary from time to time and from place to place. In the United States, the word obscenity is a technical legal term. In the 1950s the U.S.
..... Click the link for more information. ) are restricted by law because they are regarded as damaging to society as a whole. Speech that is regarded as disruptive of public order has long been beyond protection (e.g., "fighting words" that cause a breach of the peace or false statements that cause general panic). The government also limits speech that threatens it directly; although seditionsedition
, in law, acts or words tending to upset the authority of a government. The scope of the offense was broad in early common law, which even permitted prosecution for a remark insulting to the king.
..... Click the link for more information.  laws are rarely prosecuted in the United States, such rationales as a danger to "national security" have been invoked to silence criticism of or opposition to the government. Laws designed to silence opposition to organized religion (e.g., laws against blasphemy or heresy), common in some other countries, would run afoul of the First Amendment.

In recent decades speech controversies in the United States have involved, among other issues, whether and how "hate speech" directed at racial or other groups can be suppressed and what limitations may be imposed on speech in an attempt to combat sexual harassmentsexual harassment,
in law, verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature, aimed at a particular person or group of people, especially in the workplace or in academic or other institutional settings, that is actionable, as in tort or under equal-opportunity statutes.
..... Click the link for more information. . The definition of speech itself has been broadened to encompass "symbolic speech," which consists of actions that express opinions; thus, U.S. courts have held that burning the American flag as a protest is protected speech.

Bibliography

See G. R. Stone, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism (2004).