Alito Speaks on First Amendment

J.J. Jackson* | June 16, 2007

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. made it clear as he began taking questions at yesterday’s National Italian American Foundation luncheon that he couldn’t reveal any of the Supreme Court’s forthcoming opinions.

But did he at least give a hint?

Two of the court’s biggest remaining cases focus on the First Amendment, and while Alito didn’t mention either, he did make it clear that any restrictions on speech face a high hurdle with him.

“I’m a very strong believer in the First Amendment and the right of people to speak and to write,” Alito said in response to a question of “where’s the line” on what can be posted on the Internet. “I would be reluctant to support restrictions on what people could say.”

Well, there have always been certain restrictions on “free speech” not in as much as there are strict prohibitions against them but rather punishments for them. But none of them can be or have been passed by Congress. The First Amendment prohibits that. They are restrictions that already exist in our founding documents or predate them as general concepts of law.

For example, the Constitution places treasonous among the types of speech that may be punished. And it doesn’t violate the First Amendment because the Constitution is not Congress.

Perjury has also never been protected speech under the guise of the first Amendment as is a basis of laws that predate the first amendment as well and that are required in order to compel truthful testimony and serve justice. Bearing false witness (slander, libel, perjury, etc.) have never been protected because they interfere with the concept that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights (like that of a fair trial which would be impossible if lying on the stand were not a crime) and that allowing someone to spread knowing falsehoods against another infringes on such things.

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