Public service and brought to you today by your television provider. All persons having business before the Honorable Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give their attention. Landmark cases. Cspans special history series produced in partnership with the National Constitution center. Exploring the human stories and constitutional dramas behind 12 historic Supreme Court decisions. Mr. Chief justice, and may it please the court. Quite often in many of our most famous decisions are ones that the court took that were quite unpopular. Lets go through a few cases that illustrate very dramatically and visually what it means to live in a society of different people who help stick together because they believe in a rule of law. Good evening welcome to cspans landmark cases. Tonight brandenburg versus ohio this 1969 case the warren Court Unanimously handed down one of the most expansive interpretations ever of our First Amendment guarantees to free speech and assembly. As we start, what are the very basics of this case . Clarence brandenburg was the leader of the ku klux klan in cincinnati, ohio who held a rally for his small group of followers only, invited some members of the news media to attend the rally. They filmed it and aired it on tv, showing him in a hood klan regalia in front of a burning cross, some members of his organization brandishing guns making racist statements about jews and blacks and he was convicted and sentenced 1 to 10 years under an ohio statute that made it a crime to advocate violence as a form of social change. Obviously for the next 90 minutes were going to dig into the particulars of this case and learn about its impact on our society. But as we get started we have two pieces of media for you. Going to listen to a little bit of the oral argument in the case and youll hear some of the particulars of this case and please do note as you hear it, it includes some of the offensive language used by the defendant in this case but it is at the heart of what were talking about tonight. Then we move on to Justice Ginsburg then judge ginsburg in her 1993 confirmation hearing where she talks about the cases importance. Then there is a second portion of the film in which a group of people are walking or marching around a burning cross, hooded, armed, shouting profanities in which there is a question whether or not the defendant, himself, said the words as attributed to him in the transcript and on page 5. How far is the nigger going to go . Yeah. Send the jews back to israel and so forth with the other profanities. Brandenburg against ohio truly recognizes that free speech means not freedom of thought for those and speech for those with whom we agree but freedom of expression for the expression we hate. I think that there are always new contexts that will be presented. But that the dissenting positions of holmes and brandyce have become the law everyone accepts. I think that is the case today. Would you consider brandenburg as one of the great milestones in the courts history . I certainly do, yes. As Justice Ginsburg said there are always new contexts. What is it about the brandenburg case that makes it seminole . Well, i think i agree with Justice Ginsburg in two fundamental respects. The brandenburg decision both is one of the strongest protective decisions of free speech and its been around for nearly 50 years and it establishes a fundamental principle that we need to allow free speech even if it is extremely offensive or advocates unlawfulness. I think the other aspect that is very important is it means we are sometimes going to have to tolerate speech that we find personally repugnant. Let me tell you a little bit more about our two guests at the table. Theyll be with us to help us understand this case. The former president of the aclu, she served in that position from 1991 through 2008 and was both the first woman and youngest person ever to hold the position. She is now a professor at new York Law School in manhattan. Shes also got a new book out which is completely relevant to our discussion tonight called hate why we should resist it with free speech not censorship. And a senior attorney at columbia universitys knight First Amendment center, a partner at a private law firm where she wrote a brief on a First Amendment case ema versus brown which held that video games were protected speech. She also clerked in the federal courts for judge rosemary barkette of the 11th circuit the u. S. Court of appeals. Welcome to you both. Great to be here. Okay. Well start with the history. This all concerns a set of laws called the criminal syndicalis laws. I told you id have a hard time with that. Many states have them. What is the history . They were adopted starting in 1919, the world war i era as a response to the spread or the feared spread of anarchy and communism and socialism. Did they all basically do the same thing . Pretty much. The language in the ohio statute criminalized any advocacy of violence directed toward bringing about social change or economic change and they also used the word terrorism. It is interesting that our cases were looking at deals with the ku klux klan but this really was a fear of communism that got this all started so can you add any more history to what the country was worried about as all these states were passing laws . Yeah. I think the brandenburg case in general is interesting because it reflects a lot of social changes and cultural fears and transitions that are happening throughout the 20th century. So as nadine said these laws started to be passed in many states as a result of fear of communism and the International Workers of the world and concerns about a threat to capitalism from communist sympathizers and i think there was some sentiment about fear of immigrants bringing in sort of ideas from the outside to try to attack capitalist democracy. There were three key cases the Supreme Court dealt with before brandenburg one of them we talked about in our first session of landmark cases shank versus ohio which was in 1919 and that is famous for the phrase clear and present danger. Two other cases whitney versus california 1927 and dennis v. U. S. In 1951. Why are these cases all part of the lesson we need to learn about brandenburg . Basically what all of these cases have in common is they dealt with one of the greatest fears of potential harm that free speech could cause namely bringing about harm to our capitalist system or to National Security more generally. And the schenck case was famous because it was in that case that the Supreme Court through an opinion through Justice Oliver wendall holmes came up with a famous test the socalled clear and present danger test that speech could only be punished if it satisfied what sounds like a very tough standard but in fact as it was actually enforced by the court in that case and the other two you mentioned allowed government to punish speech that presented neither a clear nor a present danger but allowed it political speech it disagreed with, that criticized the status quo and challenged it. What more do you want to say about these cases . One thing that is very interesting about the schenck case and Justice Holmes role in it is he was the writer of the schenck case and established this test of clear and present danger and then, which upheld the conviction of a socialist leafleters but then withindange. I think within just a year, he changed his mind and he was in dissent in another case where he dissented against communist sympathizers. He began to develop a richer doctrine of free speech protection. For many years he was in dissent, not majority. We are going to pause for a moment and revisit the First Amendment of the constitution. It says Congress Shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or bridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people possibly to assemble, and to position the government for grievances. Can you give the audience background on what the founders were thinking . I think the founders considered the right to speech as fundamental to the american system of democracy. The ability of people to debate matters of interest and to become inform for their ability to exercise political power as well. And recognize the importance of letting truth hopefully bubble up from wide open debate. But its interesting that in this case, prior to that prior to the schenck case, the Supreme Court didnt strike down any laws regarding two free speech. Where the government would actually prevent someone from saying something in advance. But there had been no cases holding that a certain law had violated the First Amendment. When you teach First Amendment law and history to your students, what do you tell them is most important . Will i actually go back to the very first words in the constitution, we the people, in order to create a more perfect union. We the people are the governors and our democratic republic. How could we possibly carry out that, this important responsibility unless we had the most robust freedom of speech, including to criticize Government Officials and policies and each other in very strong language. You cant separate out freedom of speech from our overall political structure. Its also very important for individual self fulfillment. Justice brandeis, one of the great dissenters that katie alluded to, was reaffirmed, they overturned whitney and embraced his dissent. He said that freedom of speech is important both as an and and as a means. The and is individual liberty. Its also a means to democratic self government. If they were having a robust discussion about what free speech meant in the 1920 1930 era, we continue to have one of those in our society today. We hope youll be in our discussion today and go on this journey as we learn about the Supreme Court case, theres a number of ways to do it. You can call us. If you live in the eastern or central time zones, 2024488900, if you live in the mountain or pacific time zones. Well put the numbers on the screen there are 90 minutes together. If you have any questions or comments to share with us. You can also be part of the conversation on twitter. Right to cspan and use the hashtag landmark cases. Weve had a incredible conversation through the series. We hope that will continue. I am not gonna say it again criminal statute. The 1990 case. The ohio criminal syndicate elysium statute. It made it illegal to advocate the duty, nessa said he, or propriety of crime sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform, voluntary assembling without any society, group, or assemblage of persons. As lawyers, what do you hear in that statute that would come against peoples actions in that time . I mean i think, one of the ways that these laws were used as to punish people who were advocating or just teaching about political doctrines that would involve industrial revolution. You know, communist revolution. That was the concern about whether or not these laws would be applied, like in the whitney, case where Charlotte Whitney was the grand ease of a Supreme Court justice from a prominent family. She had attended a convention of the communist party, she was a member, but essentially convicted for being part of the communists. She opposed the position they should use violence. She was advocating what we would call that a democratic socialism. In his great concurring opinion, though it sounded like a descent, Justice Brandon said the fear of a lawless event can never justify censorship. I thought that was a great line especially when it was a woman convicted in that case. So in higher, they advocated this doctrine. So just by attending a meeting, and literally teaching. In the dennis case it was just members of the communist party who were convicted of teaching classic works of leninism and communism taught in college courses. The other thing that we should talk about is the ku klux klan. At the 1910, 1920, the ku klux klan had 10 million members. When this is germinating, what is ku klux klan like in United States . Whats the societal standpoint to the cohen . It was in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement. At the time it was a very volatile and important social change. People really talking about and fighting against the kind of terrorism that the klan had perpetrated against black americans for nearly 100 years. So i think it was extremely important, and clearly animating this case is the background of the clan. Violence and terrorism. News media suggests that according to fbi and other authorities it had as many as 200 bombings that may have been perpetrated by members of the clan or sympathizers. So this is the background. I think its also important to remember those susan, at the same time we had a growing anti war movement, and of course the Civil Rights Movement to which kitty eluded. I think that the civil rights were concerned about the rates the majority leader theyre introducing their legislation. The coronavirus aid package. Live coverage on cspan. Article 19 back in march, we had at that point added about three trillion dollars to the national debt. We then of course ended up with a debt the size of our economy for the first time. Since World War Two which in itself is concerning. I thought we need to press the pause button. See the impact of the cares act. See how he did when the economy began to reopen, and take another look at what the country needed in july. We, senate republicans, and the administration have been consulting over the last few weeks, to come up with a realistic proposal, with what we think is an appropriate amount of Additional Debt to be added to the economy at this time. We think its about a trillion dollars, and weve allocated that in a way that we think makes the most sense for the country at this particular time. It will include liability insurance, which senator coren is going to describe here shortly. Let me be clear there isnt going to be a bill the passes the senate that doesnt have the senate approval. There have already been 3500 lawsuits filed. The country cant stand a epidemic of lawsuits on the heels of the pandemic, were already working our way through. So with that, im going to call on my colleagues who have developed the various Component Parts of our proposal. Im not sure whose second. Do we know who is next . Whose second . Senator. Number one. Were going to continue the Economic Impact payments. They were made in april and may. That means that the average family of four will get another payment of 3400 dollars. It includes just a few people that were unintentionally left out of the last one. Mostly dependents, college, and adults that or somebody else is dependent. We extend additional unemployment insurance, and remember that is on top of what the different 50 states give. And on top of the Economic Impact statement i just gave, on top of that as well. So we want to help the unemployed but we want to encourage work. Weve learned a tough lesson that when you pick people not to work, what do you expect . So this payment will be adjusted so we have additional payments so we help people, with approximately 75 of their income. Thats not me. I dont think so. It sounds just like mine. We are going to have further tax relief for businesses to encourage hiring and rehiring. We want to do that to encourage people to go back to work and help the employer in the process support people in the meantime. Support patients in Nursing Homes and also foster youth. Flexible and how federal relief funds can be used including covering revenue shortfall. Somebody doesnt want me to get on television. I know that. Why didnt you tell me that . Im embarrassed. I. I hope that we can work with democrats to come up with a bipartisan agreement. Thank you very much. We all know this is round one. We know as the leader said, arab senator grassley and others will say. This is to get the American People back to, work get them to, school keep them in school as safely as we can. We already put out a lot of money. These are extraordinary times. I know the house has a bigger figure than this. The this is something we will have to work through. Overall this is a great package. I hope that the senate will move forward with it. The most of the things in our bill have meaning when added to senator blunts appropriation bill. I will add to three. Student loans, suit choice, and childcare. In march, congress agreed that the 34 million americans with the student loan wouldnt have to pay a Monthly Payment until october the 1st. The payment would still be owed, but deferred. October forces around the corner so what we propose is if you have no income, you have no Monthly Payment. If you do have income then we will change the student loan Payment System so you never have to pay more than 10 of your income after youve detected necessities of life like mortgage and food. Second on school choice, there are about 150,000 private schools in the country, 50,000 public schools, 100,000 public. About 50 million kids in public schools, 50 million and private schools. Generally we think that every child is equally important. What we propose is about 70 billion dollars for kindergarten through the 12th grade, and 30 more billion dollars for colleges. That amount of education, so there could be an area of agreement. But senator blunt will say that we believe that every school should get some money. About 1200 dollars per person from k through 12. Every person should have a third of that, even if they are opening virtually. The rest of that should go to schools who are making an effort to open as much as possible with stuns physically present. There are many more expenses when youre physically present. More teachers, more physical equipment, more space, we have to pay for that. On choice senator bill has a bill that he wants to discuss. It would give parents more choices of all schools. And Childcare Centers are having a hard time stink open because they have less revenue, fewer students, and there need to be safer environments for childcare. Finally were spending a lot of money to build up manufacturing plants. We want to make sure that they are not in china when we need to create vaccines. In the future, we want to make sure that we have plenty of masks and other equipment in our stockpiles, so we authorize that as well. This is a bill about back to school, back to childcare, and back to work. The Paycheck Protection Program has been a lifeline to more than 5 million Small Businesses and their employees nationwide. In the state of maine nearly three quarters of all Small Businesses have received these forgivable loans that have steamed the jobs of 240,000 people in maine, and brought more than 2. 2 billion dollars to the state of maine. We are proposing a second round of ppe key loans for the hardest hit Small Businesses. Just this morning i was speaking to an innkeeper in maine who told me that at this time of year usually his van would be booked solid every single night. Instead, businesses are down nearly 93 . So what we are proposing is that hardhit businesses, goes with revenue loss of 50 or more compared to last year would be able to receive a a second ppp loan to sustain their employees and cover certain overhead expenses. Another important provision allows ppp overhead expenses to be used for renovations that are necessary to comply with cdc guidelines, personal protective equipment such as masks or gloves. And other renovations that may be needed to ensure the safety of both the employees and customers. That will be particularly helpful to restaurants for example that are still under strict restrictions. There is also a long term loan component of the bill that weve introduced. Senator rubio will explain that when he gets here. I dont think he is here yet. Arguably this program has been one of the most successful provisions of the cares act. Im delighted that were introducing a extension of it today. Thank you. Well one, thank you for putting this together. We didnt know this much about china earlier on. We are learning that 90 of the equipment that our Health Care Professionals need to stay safe is made in china. President trump is hellbent on bringing the supply chain back. We have a seven and a half million text credit to incentivize ppe easy to be credit in the United States. Hansen a ties, or masks, gloves. Modeled off to the energy tax credit. We think this will have a great effect of bring the supply chain. Back there is a requirement that uniforms be made in america. We will put ppe under that so the National Stockpile will havegpn equipment made in United States and we wont have to depend on china. They are left and now we are trying to bring it back. I want made a big investment in texas. Were gonna create a tax credit to make semi conductors here. Senator portlands bill is required to punish people who steal intellectual property in the United States. Penalties for bad actors who tried to their way to success. There are a lot of precious critical medals that america has but we do a poor job of getting it out of the ground in a environmentally sound way. We are becoming more dependent on china and other places for critical minerals, and we have to plan to be more American Made and owned. I think about 25 of the bills in the education subcommittee, about 250 million dollars, none of that was there without the input from the chairman of the authorizing committee. On the education front i think its probably been talked about enough. There will be questions on that later on. On the Higher Education front, the 30 million that goes to Higher Education it will go on a ftc basis to colleges and universities. It will go out hopefully we hope. Many of them will open as early as the 10th of august or so. We need to get that money out. The elementary and secondary money. The two thirds being held back for people trying to get in education reinstated again. That money can go out quickly. If 50 of your students are inperson 50 of the time, you qualify immediately for the second two thirds of the money that would come to your schools. If less than that it has to be explained in a different way. Left up to governors and the Educational Department to decide on that. On the health front we have 60 million new dollars, a total of 65 billion dollars on tested. Our priority to help with testing through the states is to put a priority on Higher Education, childcare facilities. Childcare facilities also get a lot of attention in the bill. 15 billion dollars in the childcare facilities that has a model that doesnt work at 15 to 20 , the likely childcare enrollment. As people go back to work some people wont send their kids. Others will be looking for work themselves. So helping to get the space to match. Theres going to be distancing, and other things that need to be done. If you are a working parent, particularly a single parent that works your single biggest problem is making sure that the childcare situation works. We are putting twice as much money in our bill as the house did in the heroes act. We will be talking about moving forward from that point. Another 26 billion dollars in our bill goes to further vaccines and therapeutics. There are vaccines out there. Around the first of next year. By doing that we will lose some money because were going to move forward with producing some vaccines that we think are going to get full fda approval. We know they wont all work. But also knowing that the ones that do work would be available on january the 15th as opposed to made the 15th. At this point having a vaccine available in january the 15th as opposed to may the 15th would make a big difference. We have senator collins, a big leader in nature, money for the opioid crisis, another problem there. And Mental Health issues. We have about five billion on that side of the ledger that wouldnt be there normally. Hospitals and providers. Another 25 billion of them with a discussion that they need to spend all the hospital provider money they have. 65 billion and at the 25 billion to it, and then see how close the providers are to where they were to be at a normal year. We ask doctors and providers to generally do the two hottest things they could do. Stop your income and stand ready for the Biggest Health emergency you could imagine at your hospital or practice. That doesnt work out very well. So another 25 billion dollars there. Whats this about . Im kidding. I think senator collins has already outlined the new ppp proposal what youre hearing from Small Businesses is as the ppp money runs out they are looking for layoffs its also evidence that we are seeing resurgence is in different parts of the country that are placing new restrictions, plus the existing restrictions makes it hard to survive. So its very timely. And in addition to the ppe which is more targeted as businesses under 300 with some of the same parameters. Its something that we have seen play out over the last few weeks. That is that businesses in particular in minority and underserved neighborhoods. There was a study that said that than 5 of them had less than 200 dollars on hand. You can do from that how difficult it will be for them to survive and have access to regular Capital Markets in the future. So with this plan there is census tracks that are in either eight opportunities own or market area, where the businesses could get two times loan. Two times their annual revenue. These are Small Companies that otherwise wouldnt have access to that capital which allows them to survive and grow and reinvent themselves in the aftermath of the pandemic. What we dont want to see is an equal recovery. So for us it was important for us to target. That this is timeless for Small Businesses across the country who benefited from ppe p who are now worried about what the future holds. This isnt a bail out. This is about keeping people attached their employment. These are companies struggling as a result of necessary government regulations preventing them to stay in business. In the month of april one in every four americans who lost their job work in the restaurant business. One of the provisions on the tech side of this is to decrease the deduction of business meals from 50 to 100 . That will encourage more folks to spend more money and restaurants. That its takeout, and it will increase 100 million dollars. The number of hours worked in the. Kitchen were looking for a way to help the hardest hit individuals in the nation. One of the best sectors to focus on is the restaurant sector. This is what the provisions im talking about will exist assist. Wed like to draw attention to two of the consequences of the covid crisis that deserves that attention, and perhaps dont have as much Public Awareness as i think they ought to. One is as a result of the covid crisis were seeing trust funds for medicare and Social Security approach insolvency on a much more rapid timetable than i anticipated. Secondly, we are adding up a lot of debt. Were going to have over 70 trillion dollars of debt. That debt requires interest to be paid every year. That debt has the potential of creating more inflation down the road. And of course it can lead potentially to a economic calamity we down the road for people come behind us. As a result, republicans and democrats on a bipartisan basis have been working together. That includes senator joe, senator, king center jones, mark warner, along with republican senators, a dozen of them to see if we can address this. In the house there are some 30 democrats, and 30 republicans who have all written house leadership and who have said this approach of the house act needs to be included in the heels act if you will. The approach is quite simple. We create a process, bipartisan process to issue each one of these trust funds individually. A committee to see how they can solve it on a bipartisan basis. If we can reach a bipartisan conclusion that can come on the floor. We have to address the solvency of our trust funds. They are vital to our seniors and nation. We also have to deal with the amount of debt that we are adding up as we appropriate leaves the rescue the American People from the terrible covid crisis. Im the last one standing here. The it was difficult for republicans to negotiate legislation. It was very difficult to negotiate. When you begin negotiations with the democrats, you are talking about an income tax thats not in the legislation. What else are you going to have to give the doesnt limit too many republicans . Also why is funding to the fbi in this bill . Im not sure that it is. Is it . I think this is a starting place. We cant pass the bill in the Senate Without democrats. Every bill has to start somewhere. Republicans are the majority in the senate. This is the starting place, and we will have plenty of stories to cover along the way as we have these discussions back and forth across party lines and with the administration. I dont see any election assistance in this bill. Also the ppp didnt discuss the cash to keep the airlines of float . I dont have an answer to the second. One the first is that weve already appropriated a lot of money. Were not gonna federalize at the election system. Its conducted in every state in very different ways. Weve provided plenty of Financial Assistance but were not going to tell them how to conduct their elections during the pandemic, or in my view in the future either. Thats why there is not additional money in their for election assistance. I dont have the answer to your second question. Ill take one more if there is one. Theres 1. 7 five billion for the construction, is it possible if weve two billion that we can manage it effectively . We have to have an agreement with the administration in order to get started. They will have to answer the question on why they insisted on that provision. You will have to ask them why they insisted that be included. Okay. Thank you. We are going to listen to a little bit of alan browns oral argument. Were going to have our guests talk about the legal arguments they wanted support on. These are the facts in this case. A Television Reporter receives a telephone call indicating that if you wanted to he could come and take movies of a coup clucks gwen meeting. He came. He met some hooded figures and arrangements were made for the taking of a movie. A movie was taken in which across was burned, some figures milled about, and yelled some stupid and rather senseless slogans and then a single figure was pant in on. He made a speech. A speech full of conditions, precedents, and reservations, hyperbola self evidently stupid and silly. Another film taken is inside the house. There were guns . There were guns and both films. In both films. There were guns. It is also to be noted that the film was taken on a remote, private form in which apparently there is no evidence whatsoever that these people were not invitees present on that form by authority of the ownership of the farm. The case come on to trial the state produced nothing but the film in question. The only other evidence that the state produced was basically geared to identifying the personnel involved in the film. In other words, showing that the man brandenburg had a gun summer to the guns in the film and that he had murkiness on his person similar to the markings and that his markings were similar. Other than this the state off or nothing. So what do you think of the argument hes making to the court . Yes i think that everything that alan brown is doing is showing that this video and this rally really amounted to nothing. It was silly. It was stupid. What he is trying to establish is that nothing in this speech which was the basis for his conviction showed an intent to cause violence, or was likely the cause of violence, or would create a clear presence of danger. There was no in their, except for the people invited. He emphasized the fact that there was no evidence of a broader effort to create immediate violence. But in fact as we looked at the text of the ohio statute, he was found guilty of that. The statute was written so broadly that in effect it was creating eight crime or thought crime punishing him for disapproval of ideas. What is the courts rule also when theres as many as 33 states that have similar laws on the books . But then 14th amendment there are states that dont. How does that play into their thinking . Its interesting susan because the decision could have been written very narrowly. I think ellen browns argument was saying to the court look he wasnt even advocating violence. So on the narrowest grabs the court could have reversed the conviction. They couldve said for the sake of argument this is constitutional. We dont have to reach that because, instead the court struck down the statute and by implication all the others around the country. Were going to listen to some of the oral argument on the other side and then will return to some of your phone calls. The state of ohio said leonard correctional to represent the Supreme Court. Here is a portion of his argument. I believe that the ohio criminal syndicate wisdom law is constitutional. I have stated various authorities relative to my believes in this matter in my brief. I believe that the basic matter before this court is the application of the villains as was presented to the germ to determine whether or not there was sufficient evidence upon which a jury could return a verdict. I believe that in this case when council says sending the jews back to israel, lets give them back to the dark garden that this might not involve violence. I would like him perhaps in his reply to explain how the statement, bury the bleep, would not constitute a violent form of actions. So the Ohio Attorney is suggesting what about his language could cause violence . Hes suggesting it could cause violence but interestingly enough because there was no evidence in that case he had to come up with a hypothetical. He said suppose that clearance brandenburg said bury the bleep in ohio. The only african justice and the court said he would survive long if he said that. And allen brown the aclu lawyer said in his statement by the way the statement by justice commercial could violate the criminal syndicate colorism law because it could be seen as encouraging violence against the speaker, against brandenburg. Yeah, i think what kushner was doing in his argument was sort of the opposite of what alan brown was doing. It was trying to emphasize the fact that shows that there was a broader effort to stir up violence and unrest, both from the incendiary nature of what brandenburg said and the fact in the court has a fair amount of back and forth about this, that brandenburg had actually invited the media in and the Television Network and what kushner argued was that he wasnt just speaking to the 12 people on the farm, he was actually trying to broadcast into the Broader Community and that that would create a greater danger, a clear and present danger, of violence. Back to calls. Next up is bill in oak creek, wisconsin. Hi bill, welcome. Hello. Yes sir, you are on the air. My question is, is brandenburg overturned a believe it was called the sedition act, it was an act during world war i and he did not speak out against the war or mail anything during the war. Does that loss to apply . I think recently people it brought that up during the gulf war and so forth. It did not directly overturned that law, bill, that is an excellent question. One can make a very strong argument that the reasons in this case, and other speech protective decisions by the Supreme Court, would weigh in favor of overturning the sedition law, if anybody ever challenged it in court. But to the best of my knowledge, that hasnt happened. Do you know . Anything more katie . Is the espionage act the same as this edition act . No. No, i dont know. The federal espionage act, which prohibited advocacy of violence or unlawful acts, and also prohibited certain acts that would undermine the war effort, is still on the books. Was that . Used it has been used since 9 11 in the war on terrorism and against leakers of leaking information that could help foreign countries. James is in morristown, new jersey. Hi james. Hi. I just had a quick question. Interestingly enough, just today, i believe the white supremacist Richard Spencer was banned from utilizing facebook and i was wondering if there are any First Amendment implications to Something Like that. The First Amendment, along with virtually all rights guarantees in the constitution only binds Government Officials. Facebook, as a private sector entity, is therefore not constrained by the First Amendment at all. Under its terms of service, quite the contrary, it pledges to to block certain speakers and certain expression that a Government Official would violate the First Amendment by blocking. Ben is up next in san diego, have been. Hi. My question is particularly for nadine, i was wondering if you are familiar with george lagos