First Amendment Applications

Applications of the First Amendment

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the American people against laws made by Congress that would restrict the right to free speech or a free press, however, with the advancement of technology Americans have created new mediums of communication and the rights guaranteed in the Constitution have had to be applied to these new mediums. As a result, the Supreme Court has determined that the different types of medium involved in communication are protected in different ways. Therefore the freedom of speech and press, guaranteed in the Constitution, has been applied to legal cases involving these differing mediums of communication in quite different ways.

When the Constitution was written the main means of communication in the public arena was the newspaper, and the founding fathers wanted to ensure that these newspapers had the freedom to print what they liked. In...
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