Right to Speech

Running head: BUSINESS LAW 1
Business Law
Student’s Name
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BUSINESS LAW 2
Right to Speech
The citizens of the United States are strongly protected from the government by the First
Amendment to the US Constitution regarding freedom of speech. As such they have the freedom
to freely speak and express their opinion to the government according to article 1 of the
amendment. This amendment, however, does not include individual persons or businesses in the
restriction unless they are government representative.
There are however permissible restrictions on this freedom of speech in the following
manner, the government has the power to control the venue, time and mode of speech in claim of
maintaining law and order and that the restrictions are not related to the speech this may limit the
manner and conditions of people expressing their speech as seen in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation
(1978) and Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969).
Other restrictions include abusive words, obscenity, threats, and incitement. The
government has the power to stop "incitement" speech which could lead to a state of harm as
seen in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) and Schenck v. the United States (1919). Defamation is
against the law whether slander or libel and so is lying under oath as per United States
defamation law. This, however, should not restrict the right of a person to air their opinion.
We truly have a right to freedom of speech as we are protected by the first amendment to
the constitution of the United States, however, there are limitations to this freedom of speech on
the justification that the speech is incitement, defamation or fraud amongst other crimes against
fellow citizens as indicated by United States law.