Free Speech and Civil Liberties

At a Glance

The United States has a strictly limited federal government, with a robust Bill of Rights, yet our freedom of speech and civil liberties remain in question as government seeks new authority over citizens. The federal government today limits our political speech, subjects us to more wiretapping than ever before, criminalizes more activities every year, regulates and sometimes interferes with the content of broadcasting, and assumes unprecedented police and prosecutorial powers. The best way to protect civil liberties is to rein in the scope and power of the federal government and begin to return the federal government to its constitutional limits.

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Cato Daily Podcast

Free Political Speech Online vs. Democrats’ Election Reforms

By Will Duffield and Caleb O. Brown

An amalgam of proposals from Democrats would strictly regulate online speech, and make more costly other forms of public communication on policy issues. Will Duffield comments on the proposal.

blog

Oscar De Priest: A Congressional Death Threat J. Edgar Hoover Ignored

By Patrick G. Eddington

It’s worth remembering that the lives of all House and Senate members were not valued equally in an early time.

Commentary

House Democrats Go Fox Hunting

By Walter Olson

There is no ‘fake news’ exception to the First Amendment.

Events

How Blasphemy Laws Silence Speech and Destroy Lives

By Mustafa Akyol, Joelle Fiss, Marvi Sirmed, & Doug Bandow

Eighty‐four countries around the world have criminal blasphemy laws, according to a recent report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Mob activity, threats, and violence based on accusations of blasphemy are also common in some of these countries. The result is the silencing of millions of people and the direct persecution of hundreds of people every year, by law or vigilantism, for merely expressing their ideas and opinions.

Cato Video

Content Moderation in 2020

By Cato Institute

Will Duffield

Policy Analyst

Patrick G. Eddington

Research Fellow

Matthew Feeney

Director, Project on Emerging Technologies

Robert A. Levy

Chairman

John Samples

Vice President

Free Speech and Liberal Education: A Plea for Intellectual Diversity and Tolerance dissects the nature, extent, and causes of the speech suppression that exists, emphasizing the need for intellectual diversity and how repression often co‐exists with counter‐forces that need to be energized and mobilized in what Downs portrays as the “embattled” status of academic free speech; the character of the harms the new policies and actions pose to liberal education; broader “structural and societal threats to academic freedom; how to mobilize to protect campus freedom using resources inside and outside of the campus; and, most importantly, why robust free speech and academic freedom are so important to both liberal education and the prospects of liberal democracy.

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