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A comment on Our brief in support of Twitter's First Amendment suit against the US government. Parent comment

Re:Our brief in support of Twitter's First Amendment suit ag... by vacri on Thursday February 19, 2015 @12:32AM (#9072567)
A more recent example is 'Free Speech zones', meaning that you are free to say whatever you like, but not where people can hear you. It seems to me that "You can't assemble here" runs directly counter to "No law abridging the right to peaceably assemble", but SCOTUS trumps this foreigner's opinion :)
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Re:Our brief in support of Twitter's First Amendment suit ag... by rhino369 on Thursday February 19, 2015 @12:18PM (#9075258)
Free speech zones are more about how to let different people use public property than speech control. They don't apply to private property. Essentially they are set up to contain protestors who are trying to disrupt major events.

I don't think it's a violation of people's rights to say, no, you can't have a protest that intends to shout down another political speech or convention, at least when it is staged in very close proximity.

I do think we should be pretty dam weary of them, but I don't think they are per se unconstitutional.

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Re:Our brief in support of Twitter's First Amendment suit ag... by themartorana on Thursday February 19, 2015 @03:38PM (#9076855)
I would argue that they are desperately unconstitutional. The right to say what you want in private is nowhere near as important as it is to say it in public.

Much as the Supreme Court has determined that you (and police) have no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public space, there should be every reasonable expectation of Constitutional guarantees in ALL public space. Extremely scoped exceptions are arguable (as the much quoted "yelling "fire"" in a movie theater).

The point of free-speech zones is to remove the annoyance of having to hear freely expressed opinions that counter your own, and is usually granted to those in power (specifically politicians). This is the opposite of right. In a public space, you should have no expectation of freedom FROM speech.

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