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Here's some details on the first amendment and what is and isnt protected under the constitution:

http://debmcalister.com/2011/06/03/7-things-you-cant-claim-f...

Some things not protected:

1 - Hate speech

2 - Speech that incites violence or encourages the audience to commit illegal or dangerous acts.

3 - “Material support“ to domestic or foreign terrorist groups,

4 - Public speech made in the conduct of their duties by public employees.

5 - Slander, libel or defamation.

6 - Publishing confidential, trade secret, or copyright material

7 - True threats. Like many other areas of First Amendment protection, context, target, and intent matter in determining what is or is not a true threat. Some threats are always illegal — any threat to the President of the U.S., for example.

While the constitution is broad in its definition of what is free speech, local, state and the federal government still have some say in what they considered to be covered by the first amendment. Even in some cases it's arbitrary such as the Westboro Baptist Church hateful protests are legal, while a kid burning a cross is not.



I disagree about the "hate speech" one. In particular, the article you link to cites Chaplinsky, which was limited very strongly by Brandenburg, Virginia v. Black, in which the court limited the statute in question to apply only when intimidation is intended, and Hustler v. Falwell, which the article gets completely backward - Hustler won!




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