Lange Test Essay

As of today, the supreme court has interpreted the first amendment to say “The First Amendment provides no protection for obscenity, child pornography, or speech that constitutes what has become widely known as “fighting words.” The First Amendment provides less than full protection to commercial speech, defamation (libel and slander), speech that may be harmful to children, speech broadcast on radio and television (as opposed to speech transmitted via cable or the Internet), and public employees’ speech.”(Ruane, Kathleen Ann) with this loose definition in mind many people have begun to think whether freedom of speech should be further limited to several cases seen in recent years such as what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The latter case of DPP v Carr (2002) shows many similarities, providing that arrest should and can only be used as a method of last resort, and must not be used for minor offences where the defendant can be identified . In this particular matter, a highly intoxicated Mr Carr was of the belief that police were accusing him of throwing a number of rocks, when this was not the case. This confusion led Mr Carr’s to use offensive language, which provoked the police officer to caution the accused. Mr Carr was then soon after arrested for offensive language because of the continuation of this offence, and also for resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer in the execution of their duties. The main issue in this matter was whether or not the arrest was lawful, and if so, was it improper. It is important to note that this case was decided before the provisions of LEPRA was passed by the parliament and became valid law meaning the Court had to rely on common law principles to determine its outcome. The arrest for vulgar language in this case was held to be proper because the officer had reasonable suspicion (having witnessed him swearing and

Words alone, even aggressive ones, can not constitute an assault and must be accompanied by some bodily act or gesture that indicate a present ability to effect a purpose. In R v Secretary it was held that the reference to ‘present ability’ meant an ability, based on known facts as present at the time of the making of the threat, to effect a purpose, and that the threat may be one of future violence, and not an apprehension of immediate violence. In this case, it was Livingstone’s aggressive nature in addition to the knife in his hand that instilled in Blyton an apprehension of a future threat of personal violence which constitutes assault pursuant to s 245 and satisfies the first condition of s

Over the years there has been a minimised application of mens rea within internet offences which has resulted in an increase in the number of convictions. Strict liability is frequently used for offences under the Public Order act 1986, where it is sufficient to prove a fault where the respondent posted the electronic message. Atkins v DPP [1989] Crim. L.R. 581 found that under s. 4 of the Public Order Act a person had to receive a message from the sender or someone acting on their behalf, and being retold the message did not fall under the ambit of the act. There have been problems with the Act when applying the relevant law to the offence of flame trolling as it remains ambiguous whether the referral to a person outside a dwelling that must receive the message includes somebody using alternative technology such as a mobile phone. In 1994 the POA was updated and Section 4A was introduced by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which now forbids ‘intentional’ harassment, alarm or distress. The provision was used in 2012 to prosecute a youth who had posted racist remarks on Twitter. After being prosecuted under the provision, the youth, Liam Stacey, served half of his 56-day prison term.

Joel Feinberg, defines the Offense Principle as “ it is always a good reason in support of a proposed criminal prohibition that it is probably necessary to prevent serious offense [as opposed to injury or harm] to persons other than the actor, and would probably be an effect means to that end if enacted.” (Feinberg, 1984). I believe that this principle serves as the best way to analyze R. V. Keegstra. There are many factors that fall under the Offense Principle, such as extent, duration, social value of speech, the ease with which it can be avoided, the motives of the speaker, the number of people offended, and the general interests of the community at large, however, I will only touch a few. Based off of these factors, Keegstra and Zundel should be prosecuted, but not those from “Go Yankee, go”. Zundel and “Go Yankee, go” are to be discussed in a later section of this essay.

In the case of Elonis v. United States, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Elonis’s speech did not count as a “true threat” since a subjective intent to threaten was needed. An objective standard would not be sufficient in this case because we want to separate actual criminal acts from heat of the moment mistakes. However, the decision of the Supreme Court does not include intended victims of the threats and they need to be taken into account as well. The government’s duty to protect the right to first amendment’s freedom of speech and its duty to keep people safe can collide from time to time. Therefore, we may have to take all threats seriously and not just the ones the speaker intends, in order to protect everyone from potential violence and prevent preemptive strikes out of fear.

1: Imagine walking through Sydney Airport, excited as you wait to catch your flight when all of a sudden a brawl that can only be described as “chaotic, wild and uncontrolled” breaks out. As you watch on, frozen in fear, a man begins to aggressively beat his rival with a metal bollard, stabbing him and killing him in cold blood; How would you feel if that man was allowed to walk the streets of NSW? Walk on the same footpath as you, shop in the same aisle as you. Well this man, Mick Hawi was allowed to, as he was released on bail five years after committing this crime.

While the forefront argument to Brandis’ reform is that “freedom of speech” is moderated due to the excessive protections against racial vilification, the legal ramifications of swaying the balance towards freedoms are incontrovertible. Under his bill, the term “intimidation” would change where unlawful conduct from vilification would only be warranted if it “caused fear of physical harm” meaning that insults, humiliation and offences are watered down unless they warrant physical threats of violence – disregarding psychological attacks indefinitely (Alternative Law Journal, 2014). Ron Merkel, who was the Australian Council for Civil Liberties president in 1995, concurred which this outlook in 1994. Merkel, who coincidently was also the lawyer of Mr Andrew Bolt, television host and political commentator, blatantly labelled Section18 as “exactly the kind of thing that led to the Nuremberg race laws” in his article “The Quadrant” – the insinuation by Merkel is that Nazi Germany’s provisions upon the Jewish freedom of speech and expression is as

With all the freedom that we have, we must remember that Freedom of Speech is not absolute. The United States Supreme Court ruled that the United States government has the right to limit speech. The question then becomes, “Where do we cross the line with free speech?” What type of speech is “impermissible”? According to government of the United States, offensive speech such as libel, obscenity, and fighting words that may incite violence should be limited or banned.

“Defending the Right to be Offensive” is an article from the Globe and Mail archives. It summarizes the conflict between a group of Trent professors and the general belief that the environment at an university should be peaceful. The professors are protesting against the zero tolerance of harassment and discrimination policy, which appears to be absurd in the beginning. However, the author argues that the professors are “true revolutionaries”, and his thesis is in favour of the Trent faculty, therefore defending the right to be offensive.

Queensland’s legislation in relation to the bikie laws is an unfair piece of Australian law. Focusing on the VLAD laws, these laws must be revoked as while in effect set a precedent for a laws to be made only for s specific group. Targeted. This cancels out the Rule of Law principle of ‘Equality before the Law’.

Throughout the years of US jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has interpreted the First Amendment to allow latitude to speech of the press and of the people. However, the restrictions on speech the Court determined to fall outside the limits of permitted speech and therefore considered “unprotected speech” include fighting words, incitement to imminent lawless action, defamation, solicitations to commit crimes, child pornography, blackmail, perjury, obscenity, and false & misleading commercial speech. To look back at recorded foundations of the first amendment regarding speech – words used to incite imminent lawless action, can be seen in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). The U.S. Supreme Court held that “the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” That is to say, a state can’t stop free speech unless there is imminent danger of inciting violence.

Imagine a situation where you are crossing the street for a class. Then someone you do not know stops you at the signal light, telling you that from now on, you are prohibited to say American slang because it is considered to be too informal and wrong, and that you must obey this rule because he is an authority. What would you think of that? Ian Buruma doubts the rationality of it. Buruma, who advocates the right of the ordinary people to speak freely, utilizes multiple, varying tones in his essay, The Freedom to Offend, to make clear his advocacy for freedom of speech. The overall plain and simple tone draws close the readers and encourages us to read; the appropriately and smartly used sarcasm sharply harm those people who hinder our rights to offend; the indifference that he shows towards the people who frighten us unreasonably tells us not to be threatened just because we are pushed by authorities; and the seriousness elicit deeper thoughts from the readers to think of the problem. These flexibly changing manners of speaking are integrated into one reconciling thesis ─ as long as what we say does not elicit an inevitable strife or violence, we should be

In Brink’s discussion of, Millian Principles, Freedom of Expression, and Hate Speech, he distinguishes between low value and high value speech. The former is speech that plays no essential role in the exposition of ideas and is of such slight social value as a step to the truth that any benefit is outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. Examples of low value speech include threats, fighting words, incitement of illegal activity, libel, and obscenity. In contrast, high value speech is speech that contributes to public discourse. Moreover, it possesses content-based restrictions that are subject to strict scrutiny, laws that are necessary to meet a state interest.

The case Chaplinsky vs. New Hampshire stated that there are some classes of speech that are limited. They are the lewd, the obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting words. When spoken they encourage fighting and so is a disturbance of peace (Stone, Seidman). Therefore, the courts have created laws that will protect a person against libel and slander.