Re:European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Inte...
by SEMW on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @09:33AM
(#7224455)
> The USA's first amendment of the constitutions includes no such concession nor limitations
As a Brit, my knowledge of US law is limited, but that seems pretty clearly false. The exceptions and limitations are set out in case law rather than in the text of the amendment (as they are in A.10), but that doesn't mean they don't exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_excep... lists the main ones (Miller v. California, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, etc.). The areas covered seem at a glance to be broadly similar to those in A.10(2).
I think it's probably true that exceptions to the US 1st amendment are narrower than those to A.10 -- the US does indeed have fairly strong free speech protection -- but that's a long way from saying there aren't any!
(I don't think I'd want free speech to be an unqualified right, either. Many of the limitations in the US and EU seem broadly sensible - obvious example: there are good consequentialist reasons for restricting the distribution of child pornography).
As a Brit, my knowledge of US law is limited, but that seems pretty clearly false. The exceptions and limitations are set out in case law rather than in the text of the amendment (as they are in A.10), but that doesn't mean they don't exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_excep... lists the main ones (Miller v. California, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, etc.). The areas covered seem at a glance to be broadly similar to those in A.10(2).
I think it's probably true that exceptions to the US 1st amendment are narrower than those to A.10 -- the US does indeed have fairly strong free speech protection -- but that's a long way from saying there aren't any!
(I don't think I'd want free speech to be an unqualified right, either. Many of the limitations in the US and EU seem broadly sensible - obvious example: there are good consequentialist reasons for restricting the distribution of child pornography).