Inspiring congressional model. Because the National Constitution center is the only institution in america chartered by congress to disseminate information about the u. S. Constitution on a nonpartisan basis. That is so spiritually uplifting. Here on a monday morning. The reason we recite it even though we are a private institution it is important to remember that it was created during this moment of bipartisanship to encourage americans of different perspectives to converge about the around the values and documents which unitas which is the u. S. Constitution and its so so important at this polarized time. There are just a bunch of really thrilling initiatives just last week we opened the first time in American History that the five drafts of the u. S. Constitution have appeared in one place not even doing the Constitutional Convention itself was his very first draft of the constitution the sketch notes of the committee of detail presented along with that. Presented right next to the committee of stout report. And you can now find them online. This week with those across america will be able to click on the text of each of these three documents and see how the first written draft have no preamble. The next second one did have a pre and ball. I am looking left. At monticello to inspire himself. And then the third draft as we the people of the United States signaling the belief that we the people are behold are sovereign. As opening next week we opened an amazing exhibit on John Marshall and his constitutional legacy. Not only the great chief justice but also his golf stones which were at the modern ms. Museum down the street. It was in operation that almost killed him. Im really thrilled to announce that recently the Charitable Trust gave up a very important grant that will provide the money for new gallery on the constitutional legacy of the civil war and reconstruction it is exciting and important but we raised the rest of the money that will allow this to be open because we will display along with rare artifacts in a partnership with the Gettysburg Foundation the flag that he flew over independence hall. Rare copies of the 15th amendment to the constitution. Which made the promise of a new book the freedom of gettysburg reality and the constitutional progress. In a way that all americans and students from eight to 80 can appreciate. On the first war of the Constitution Center to display the rarest first draft of the constitution and then the amendments of the second founding. There is more to say but we have to start the show because this is so exciting and important. It will be very easy to make because its so heartfelt. It is a constitutional hero. He is americas greatest First Amendment warrior. Once said that if i were a real lawyer i would like to be abrams. And he is more than just a real lawyer he is responsible for some of the most Important Supreme Court victories for the First Amendment ever beginning with the pentagon papers case. And he has now written this beautiful compact passionate soulful book i will use that. He talked about the soul of the First Amendment. With passion he distills the essence of what the First Amendment means. Across europe and across the world. It helps them embrace all the more fervently. We all take for granted. Today they are very much under siege. Please join me in welcoming the great constitutionalist floyd abrams. [applause]. Welcome back that such an honor to always had you at the Constitution Center. Congratulations on this magnificent book. In france there is a ban on discussing the election several days before it. How is that possible. One of the consequences actually may have read a lot of the material in the styles. They were hacked and were made available publicly. In france had it illegal for the candidates for the campaigns to campaign and all in the last 44 hours of the campaign. The campaign is over. The public is supposed to think about it. The campaigns are not allowed to say anything. And then release of this was literally minutes before. That. Of silence for several it wouldve been adopted. And for our purposes now that the First Amendment would allow a ban on speech at a time when it may be most important with this example. If i were teaching a course i would have tried that. Hypothetical in which something really important leaked during the campaign silence and you can think of all of the good reasons for this silence. You want a. Of consultation. What is telling to me no American Lawyer could have lost that. And one of the candidates has protested. It raises some other issues. It would not had been a closed case. In the answer to why is why we have a First Amendment in the first place. We mean deliver to limit the governments role in power over speech probably more than anything. But not just political speech. And the time when political speech is more telling is on the eve of an election. It would not had been a hard case here just watching television about the election. No one is saying that they made it interesting. They have this profoundly it was a seriously different approach to Public Discourse in two freedom of speech. That in good part is there. You and i will talk about these. Lets talk about the nearest analog. With the heroic devotion. They argued the case in one it. With the progressive left. There were other libertarian liberals. I found this to be the most compelling Popular Defense of the majority in Citizens United that i have seen but i do have some questions about it. When you tell the audience why you believe that on constitutional grounds that it was so obviously correctly decided. If i were drafting and exam for students i might have picked the french example if your drafting of why is citizens type ruling should have occurred it wouldve been the very fact of Citizens United a conservative group partially but not even much funded by corporate money it was one hour blast at Hillary Clinton when she seemed to be the likely democratic candidate in 2008. Senator obama was nominated. At that time Hillary Clinton seem to be the leading candidate. They came up with what i viewed as a hit job a starkly unfriendly critical view of the leading candidate of one of the two Political Parties for president. In the whole thing was as Justice Kennedy said in articulation of white she should not be president now it wouldve been a crime for that to be shown under the law as it then existed within 60 days of an election on television. That is what the law provided. It provided because there was some and it happens not much happens to some corporate money which was given to this organization. Not for me that made it an easy case for me i ask myself how can that not be. Protected by the First Amendment. A political oriented group which has strong views on who ought to be elected prepares the documentary however one may view and decide that. I documentary about a candidate for president and as a crime. Its a crime to put on television. When its most important that people focus on politics on if we should be nominated at that time. In the crime simply because there was some corporate money involved in entity that put it out. For me unacceptable it was that that led me to agree to represent them who was a friend of the court into be one of the two lawyers who argued. On behalf of Citizens United. That was my starting point, as my book sets forth to change my view on the subject i was persuaded by an opinion in an earlier case about this issue of Campaign Finance and money in politics and the likes. It seems to me that all of the dangers are designed to prevent and protect against over speech, press religion and assembly. The chilling speech and therefore preventing it led me to the conclusion that i didnt think the government ought to have a role with respect to the money that people and Citizens United spend especially if it have to be publicly disclosed as it is on all of these super packs that you read about and should be written about all of these super packs we know who has given money and by the way the overwhelming amount is by individuals while wealthy individuals to be sure but individuals not corporations. About 88 of the money donated to super packs throughout 2016 was by individuals so as to them Citizens United itself would not have a real impact thats why i was and him coming from on the subset subject. One of the reasons that i think we havent had what i consider a serious public debate about it is political not ideological. Political in the sense that the democrats think or thought that it hurts them and they strongly opposed it with the proposed constitutional amendments to deal with it. And the republicans who think it helps them dont like to talk about it. Because there is nothing in it for them. To have a big public debate about Citizens United. We had have a deeply onesided discussion with occasional outsiders like me wayne and but in terms of what the public has heard about the benefits or harm caused in this area it has been very much anti Citizens United. On a nonpartisan basis. They show 80 of the public oppose Citizens United. Even i need a First Amendment. See make you do a very powerful job showing how your support for the constitutional proportions with any restrictions on political speech and you also note that the last election where the winner spent less than the loser. I just want to ask one more constitutional question. I asked Justice Ginsburg that. She told me they would not had been a fan of Citizens United because he have a horror of corporate and although he might have made a exception for Citizens United that was a nonprofit exxon is different and corporations were treated differently all throughout American History so why should exxon had the same free speech rights as you. The beginning of your question. I agree as of today and as then would not had supported Citizens United on the other hand i ask myself who is the most recent Supreme Court justice who was the strongest proponent of free speech he joined the opinion in the case before us they dealt not with corporations but with individuals. And in the strongest terms said could not allow the government to have the power to limit speech by individuals by limiting what the people could spend to get their speech out. One could say on a pragmatic basis maybe Justice Brennan also would not had voted that way that he sure sounded. As if he believed. And maybe he would have come to the position of such fear and concern about the power of big corporations that he would have been there at the end of the day. What im saying is simply if you take seriously what he said about the First Amendment he wouldve been on our side in the case. Now for exxon and the like it seems to me that the fair way to say it is why should any corporation be able to participate in the political process again assuming as i am which is almost all accurate there is one exception why she would let corporations speak also of course we do that in areas in which we are very comfortable with this enormous press corporation. On so many anymore. There was a time and more important in which newspapers were one town newspapers where they get all of their news from one newspaper and as living memory also. In the Supreme Court in cases involving that unanimously. We understand how powerful they are we understand that people make all of their news from the local press and maybe it just is one newspaper. But, the general rule in free speech is the same i think that to say that the New York Times can run an editorial with the foreign oil from this place. I dont think we should read the bill of rights. Now again i think it is really important that we know who is speaking. If we have that and we generally do with these super packs we absolutely do. It is more dangerous to say that sort of entity not just people cant speak or cant speak much than is to say the dangers of their speech is so great that we will either not permit them to speak were in effect limit the amount of speech they may engage in. At the general proposition we dont allow finetuning of how much speech may be made by this person or that person or by this entity we can do a lot of things economically to corporations to wealthy people also. It has nothing to do with the First Amendment. If we are concerned about how big and powerful certain corporations are we can do what every congress chooses to do. If we think certain people or too many people they have too much money. We can deal with that. Congress has allowed to deal with that. The president is allowed to propose legislation where i get off of that vote is when we say the way to deal with economic injustice. Is to limit speech. Rather than to live limit the amount of money one of the many beautiful things about this book is you can trust the american visualization. One of them as the french is the french right to be forgotten. With the right of oblivion. All the french want to be forgotten. As you describe in this book. In europe if we were having a show and someone was tweeting that. After the show the demand that it be removed and it would have to decide if it was public figures and if they were relevant or not and if they guessed wrong then theyre up to 2 of their annual income which was 60 billion last year as a result of this is you describe it they have taken down nearly 500,000 of content and you list them in this amazing part of the book. And here are some of the stories. They allegedly have a relationship all of this would be absolutely protected telus right now why not. This is a very interesting and quite recent development that just five is five or six years ago the European Court decided that after a certain amount of time the amount not necessarily fixed when this paper article is no longer considered relevant about people and generally about people who are not ongoing political people but not relevant anymore they can ask it. As you said. I dont want that on google. But they cant carry it anymore. It is a privacy protecting notion why should someone suffer so much from something that happened so long ago. So a recent case in belgium for example a driver of a car in a terrible accident the driver was responsible and two people died in an automobile cost crash. A real person and responsible for. Lets say a dozen years ago. He says to google i dont want my name there anymore. And they have to take it out. And they actually argued that it shouldnt had to but lost in court. Now here that would be applicable. It was true. It was true when it was written and it remains true about what happened then we would say we dont destroy history. And we dont want to empower courts or any Government Entities to start telling us what sort of truthful and accurate material duly published and not libelous or et cetera what sort of material may continue to be made public. And in europe more than we do. About what they view as privacy and less than we do about freedom of expression the line that they had drawn and really drawn in the sand is continued relevance and you can see how loose that line can be there may be no continued relevance about the guy who drove his car and was written up all of those years ago. Depending on how you view it. The approach now is that google and other carriers as it were cannot continue to carry material of that sort and in this case canada with us we have held firm. Just weeks ago. A right to be forgotten was introduced as proposed legislation. In supported by one legislator on the ground why should someone had to suffer years after the fact for something embarrassing event and the fact that as you pointed out included among things that can be said via google at least our trials not just slippery newspaper articles which may or may not had been a fair or the like but the result of trials. In the testimony of trials. In findings of judges at trials. And they would say the supporters just to be clear to you. If so we dont do this a Public People hardly ever in any event. We dont do it if it has some sort of claim to continuing rebel relevance. When all should be unspoken in the Greater Public interest of allowing life to go on without constantly being plagued by an act or an action of 15 or 20 years ago. Again its an interesting subject and an interesting topic but it is profoundly unamerican of the First Amendment to have a law which requires that in that law is now the law throughout the european union. You give lots of others. If they say is focused on the protection of liberty you give examples of finland. Its the most protective in the world. Which dealt with that. With the prime minister. And you said imagine that happening in age of monica lewinsky. And in the finished case. The state brings an action against the former girlfriend. Goes to court and says you cant say that because it intrudes about the privacy of the prime minister. Into the court the book can go on but take out everything about mac and how they reacted to that girlfriend. Its important i think to be clear without my view these are not absurd results. They are not crazy and they are not intended to suppress speech that matters et cetera. But they all presuppose a willingness on the part of the public to have a society in which a constant decision is being made about what may be said and whatnot and being made by some entity of the government. As it determines what is good for the people or bad for the people to hear. While there are always exceptions that is not the direction in which we have gone in so as a regard to the right to be forgotten i think the Supreme Court would ache to get a case like that. So they could come out with some nice unanimous decisions with flags flying and defending freedom of speech. Are you concerned about the europeanization of the american freespeech tradition. We are seeing calls in america who impose the dignitary norms. Why is that dangerous and are you you concerned that the tradition you are defending might be under siege. I am concerned in particular on what we see on college campuses. While one can argue about how prevalent these problems are they are very real the First Amendment only First Amendment only applies to the government. It only applies to actions of the state. Not private entities. University of pennsylvania is bound by the First Amendment is treated as the government. Other universities and colleges are not bound by the First Amendment. Most colleges had decided to follow the First Amendment norms. But they dont have to we see a significant amount of restraint on speakers who are chosen controversial speakers usually with the right politically to others as well the mayor of jerusalem shouted down when he tried and was invited to speak in San Francisco state. He shouted down people that were critical of israel. We see example after example on private and public. Ray brown and the former Police Commissioner of new york. We see people invited and then disinvited Condoleezza Rice for one. It seems to me that this suggests a lack of understanding on the part of students who participate in the source of activities about the nature of Free Expression into the free society. At least in our society. And an unwillingness to allow a speech to be heard which they think is deeply and profoundly pick your word wrong wrongheaded that lead people in the wrong direction. Sometimes it reaches a level of uncertainty. And the students protested some people have put in chalk on the ground supporting trump for president. And students protested that their psyche was hurt by cnet and it made them feel bad and there was a whole proceeded about it. As if one had to take the this sort of thing seriously. But more commonly and more dangerously i think we have just seen a lot of examples of people on campuses around the country who were in one way or another not permitted to speak because of their views and very often not permitted to speak even though people on the other side have been permitted to speak. And while it certainly true that sometimes people invited have been invited to the very purpose of creating a stir and maybe even hopefully creating a First Amendment explosion of one sort of another is the same. We really have a problem there. And part of the problem is i dont think the students of a certain age have been taught about the constitution in general or the First Amendment specifically before they get to college there are not classes in civics anymore. They dont teach an awful lot on this the older situation was better than the current one. Because on this issue however issue at least they were taught and they were taught when they were young that there was such a thing as an american constitution and an american bill of rights and an american rate thats why to me its so cheery to be here and see young kids Walking Around looking at a display from our constitution the interactive ways of learning thank you for that floyd and is meaningful. That is why all of our efforts are so important. And as why its so important to all of you and for cspan viewers to learn about the First Amendment things that they are describing. In the best place to start is on the thrilling interactive constitution the point of it is that you see the liberal scholars debating about what they agree and disagree about. Lets say you had one that agrees with you. The speech can only be banned if its intended to incite violence why we shouldnt do that. What should they have done in the case. It should never be an excuse that a person who is incited when they allow students to invite. It should never the Security Problems are and not bar the speaker if you care enough to protect speakers and its just unacceptable to say that you can limit even apologize but not had certain speakers because of their message. There are hard situations and im very sympathetic with the University Administrators and very glad that im not one of them. Thinking through how my students in good faith who dont throw things or anything but are just hurt they come to feel oppressed as a result of certain speakers who are insinuate and what they have to say. They dont call for violence, im not talking about incitement to violence there is a problem when we have racist speakers. Its a real problem and is not answered by simply saying the First Amendment. But the way to deal with it is not to be in the speech but the First Amendment is to answer the speech or protest the speech or take any one of a lot of steps that are available to make clear how much one to test the views expressed. And some heckling is allowed also. It doesnt have to be polite all the time. But the one fundamental rule that seems to me the rule that cannot have exceptions to it that you cant shut up speakers. You cant shut them up either physically this happened at middleberry college. In a way and that the speaker cannot be heard. That is a violation of all that the First Amendment cares about. They allow all of the protesting but it does not allow the suppression of speech. And that is true even with the concert reversal speakers. If all you have a speakers who are moderate and middleoftheroad. He murmured. I was afraid i am really torn about that. Let me say the easy part first. The executiv executive order dot change very much at all. Its very narrow. People on the right that wanted Something Big time will be disappointed and people who oppose that. With that said, i am very reluctant to have rules or regulations that limit what can be said from the pulpit which limits what religious leaders or spokesmen can say. The way these walls were his losing the Tax Exemption, religious organizations are not supposed to engage in politics and if they engage enough in politics they will be treated like people in politics and not like people of religion and so on the one hand there is a danger in my view and it is a First Amendment freespeech danger of limiting what priests and rabbis and everyone can say about politics as well as other things. Not to say that is to ask for a lot of trouble both definitionally and otherwise. Are we really going to say a risk of losing a Tax Exemption by opposing abortion publicly even though it is central to an ongoing president ial race . I dont like to get. I have to acknowledge this is a hard issue. Before it gets to the press or the speech. It prevents a Government Action which at its most obvious results in a state church, but also involves the government with religion or against religion and theres all sorts of things the courts have said that religious organizations cant get without being treated like everyone else. There are cases about can a Public School be used by a religious organization to engage in basketball games, are we subsidizing a religion by saying you can use Public School property these are all hard cases. This is a very hard and difficult case, but my starting point is my reluctance to get into limitations on speech even by using the limitations imposed by the Internal Revenue code. We have a series of questions on fake news that is protected speech and it leads to violence to be protected for example that Hillary Clinton was running a sex ring out of a washington, d. C. Pizza shop that people could have been killed and the related question although not the same our President Trumps comments. [laughter] i was trying to think of a no, yes, no or yes, no, yes. Let me scout around in those three areas. Let me deal with a third one first when i deal with the impact of President Trump. Weve never had a situation before in which the president engaged in a sort of daily denigration about the press. Weve never had a situation where as a matter of what i consider to be a policy and American Administration tried so hard to persuade the American Public that the bulk of the American Press was not to be trusted or believed were treated with the general respect that has been the case historically, and that said, it is true that we have had president s who have done things to the press which certainly President Trump hasnt done and has 100 plus days in which he may never do. It was john adams, not donald trump who got the sedition act of 1978 through as a result of which a lot of journalists were jailed with Teddy Roosevelt who tried to jail Joseph Pulitzer because of things at the panama canal. It is too early to pass judgment on what President Trump does about the press. His language i think. It is not a genuine threat even though it is meant as a general threat because they dont have a federal libel law. Its nothing to amend and nothing for congress to do. It is what prevents donald trump and other powerful and wealthy people from winning libel suits. Bringing a libel suit that the conduct he cant win unless the material published was not only false but known to be false or suspected to be false. That is really hard to prove in for one thing it is true beyond that even when it is true its really hard to prove that the state of mind and that is what we are talking about that the state of mind that the journalists was to lie if president obama were to sue President Trump for his inaccurate statement false statement president obama had wiretapped him which would be a crime. He would have to meet these tests and President Trump who ought to be grateful for the tests which keep people from bringing libel cases and they sued in these protections, so what would obama have to prove that trump made a statement about him, yes that it was false, yes, but it was defamatory, very bad about that, yes. And he knew it wasnt true or that he had a high degree of awareness into was probably false. That is where that case would be. That would be the only issue. Again in that area as well we have more protection for speech and sometimes false speech and it is true anywhere in the world we protected acrosstheboard. Its hard to win that libel case and that is what the president really objects to and thats what the First Amendment protects. I think the first one is important. What is the legal status. I want to make sure i got it right. The president has to be a natural born citizen and 35 years of age. He cant because hes not a National Born citizen. On the First Amendment on the broad issue of fake news is no difference in the law between fake news and untrue news. We do provide a remedy for all of that just said one can bring libel suits about things that are said that are false about the person about whom they are said and it is a public person that can occur. Theres nothing else added on, theres nothing additional if you call it as it is, fake news. If there is something society can do about fake news other than the potential use of the libel law, the only thing i think is the private and not public which is to say not an act of congress, but private. Google, facebook can take steps is trying to take some steps so that doesnt wind up carrying fake news, fake news i am defining as meaning deliberately concocted false information about things that did not happen, not mistakes. Its a story such as the question referred to. When Hillary Clinton was working at a pizza shop or that children are being abused and yes, could she have been sued it could be a lawsuit against whoever released it and it is known to be false and the like. Its not a remedy that is going to accomplish anything. The only way to deal with fake news is twofold one is to reject out of hand when we see it and condemn the people that put it out into the other is the entities that controlled. We present the best and the brightest. Brightest. Of reality is again and again these enormous institutions talking about Citizens United and the power of facebook to impact the public opinion. Where they get all their news from facebook and facebook has been put in the position with the public. But the government cant do because we protected and the government cant get into but facebook can and facebook shouldnt show people killing themselves and facebook shouldnt show suicide of children and again and again it will continue and it should continue. But again and again, facebook and its competitors are going to find themselves in a position where they simply have to engage to a greater degree that they do now with what one would call editorial judgment. There is some good legal reason why they would rather not simply something they must do and will do. The media voluntarily chose not to publish the information because they thought it would distort Public Discourse in a year just to sit facebook should restrict hate speech or fake news to promote public reason. If matheson believes the americamadison believed the ames public reason prevailed do you believe the platforms have an obligation to monitor the content of speech in order and are you Optimistic Pessimistic it can survive in the age of the internet or are we all doomed . [laughter] this is not a time in American History in which i think anybody can be too optimistic about public reason that we have to go on and hope that it does. I think madison would be surprised and a little more than depressed at some matters that are front and center of the american psyche today on where people get their news and how much little how Little People know about the most fundamental things about the American Government itself. I think we did have in general a more educated public at an earlier time in history and get we now have the tools for the first time in the history of the world at low cost and easy mechanism to hear about everything and learn about everything in the world. Theres never been a time in which there was more information, more available with less difficulty and more speech available to all of us in our own ways online van was ever the case ever before in the history of the world. The question is what we make of that. When you give us this possibility of learning and educating ourselves on the internet, i am giving hope theres so many other Great Questions but i want to do this answer them on this great feature that we have called ask jeff for the remaining Citizens United question but if you if you were a member of the Constitution Center, everyone whos not, go sign up, go to the website, become members at any level to get this content and get a weekly newsletter where we answer the constitutional questions of the week as well as disseminating these educational materials and podcasts and videos that are so important for all of us to learn about and educate ourselves to that the public reason that is defended so eloquently and the American Public itself will survive for the services and the First Amendment in this spectacular book please join me in thanking [applause] someone like steve jobs can come into this product and be associated with it but he was certainly handson and have a lot to do with it. But the truth