The Soul of the First Amendment

"Floyd Abrams litigated some of the most important First Amendment cases in America. This book offers an erudite and passionate explanation of how central and fundamental the First Amendment is to our culture, our legal system and the vibrancy of our intellectual life. He makes the case that robust protections for free speech are essential to democracy. It’s a book that celebrates the First Amendment and imparts why we need to cherish the First Amendment. National security rationales, historically, have been at or near the top of the list of the justifications that government uses to impinge upon speech. This is not just limited to the United States. We see it all over the world. For instance, Chinese dissidents are often arrested for state subversion. It makes sense that speech a government wants to suppress is portrayed as threatening to the state. For example, during World War One , Americans were prosecuted for distributing pamphlets encouraging desertion under a national security rationale. But the idea that national security justified punishing speech changed. By the Vietnam War , attacking U.S. policy and advocating draft resistance was protected speech. But this sort of speech is by no means secure. We just submitted an amicus brief to support former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s efforts to publish a book that President Trump sued to have suppressed, using national security as a rationale."