Supremes to decide if lying is protected speech.

daredelvis said:
But he [Reagan] did often claim to have visited Nazi death camps.
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This was attributed to Reagan and apparently some people who heard Reagan assumed Reagan meant that he personally had liberated Nazi camps (even though he was NOT there), but, as I've said before,
Brown said:
I'm not totally convinced that Reagan is entirely to blame for this. If I understand correctly, Reagan was a part of the Signal Corps, and it was the Signal Corps that took much of the shocking concentration camp footage. Reagan also did review the raw footage taken by the Signal Corps. It is possible that Reagan said something like, "I was with the Signal Corps when the Signal Corps helped liberate the camps," and this led people to conclude that Reagan said he was present during the liberation.

There is little question, however, that this misunderstanding was not an isolated incident. Regardless of what Reagan actually said, several people concluded that Reagan claimed to have been present at the liberation.
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The business about the fictitious Medal of Honor recipient is another matter. This puzzling story was part of a public speech and was recorded. Some attributed the story to a tale in the Reader's Digest, others to a movie that Reagan saw. It may have been due to both. But no matter what, the story was false. No Medal of Honor recipent did what Reagan said, or got a Medal for it.

The heroic feat in question was a flyer who, though he could have bailed out and saved himself, remained on a doomed aircraft with a fellow flyer who had no hope of escape.

On a side note: At the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, there are stories of at least one CANADIAN who was recognized posthumously with Canada's highest honor for a similar (but nevertheless distinctly different) feat of heroics in WWII. Also, similar heroics were displayed by some who remained behind in the World Trade Center, though they could have escaped, to keep company with those who were doomed and could not escape.
 
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It is very difficult to predict an outcome of a case from an oral argument, but this oral argument seems to suggest that the law is in serious jeopardy. The Supreme Court can swat down this law without holding that there is a constitutional right to lie.
 
Brown said:
Watch out, Tom Hanks. I heard you wore one of those medals in one of your movies (and the footage of you getting the medal from Lyndon Johnson was faked), even though you weren't entitled to wear it.
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:)
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
I'm sorry, you lost me. I was talking about the Stolen Valor Act.
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And I was talking about the meaning of the Stolen Valor Act.

The case I cited is a fundamental case on how judges can get from the wording of a statute to a conclusion as to what does and does not fall under that wording. It shows that they aren't bound by a lay person's literal perceptions.

Note that more than one justice brought up what you said could not be found in the Act... obviously they are operating with different equipment from you.
 
crimresearch said:
And I was talking about the meaning of the Stolen Valor Act.

The case I cited is a fundamental case on how judges can get from the wording of a statute to a conclusion as to what does and does not fall under that wording. It shows that they aren't bound by a lay person's literal perceptions.

Note that more than one justice brought up what you said could not be found in the Act... obviously they are operating with different equipment from you.
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Sorry, I don't note that. I saw nothing about it being limited to official government meetings, or in any way hinging on why he made the statement on record at a government meeting.

[ETA: The only thing I see to that point was Mr. Libby's assertion, "It doesn't matter whether the lie was told in a public meeting or in a private conversation with a friend or family member. And the law punishes false claims to a military award regardless of whether harm results or even is likely to result in an individual case." That went unchallenged.]

Indeed, I do note that they focussed quite a bit on what I pointed out was the justification for the law given in the law--the idea of a general harm to medals in general. This is one way it differs from conventional fraud laws, as I said earlier. The general harm, in this law, is just presumed to exist.
 
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Brown said:
It is very difficult to predict an outcome of a case from an oral argument, but this oral argument seems to suggest that the law is in serious jeopardy. The Supreme Court can swat down this law without holding that there is a constitutional right to lie.
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I would be very surprised if the outcome is anything else.
 
Brown said:
It is very difficult to predict an outcome of a case from an oral argument, but this oral argument seems to suggest that the law is in serious jeopardy. The Supreme Court can swat down this law without holding that there is a constitutional right to lie.
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Hm. I had the opposite impression. I think Sotomayor would probably strike it down, and Breyer seemed to be searching for a rationale to do so with his questions about less restrictive alternatives (though I'm not sure he found one). I found it hard to get a good read on Ginsburg and Kagan's positions; they seemed to be probing around the slippery slope arguments, but that could just mean that they're looking for a way to uphold the statute without creating bad precedent.

And I think Scalia, Alito, and Roberts are pretty solid votes to uphold, and I'll assume Thomas would be with them. Ditto for Kennedy, though he would write a narrower opinion; like me, he seems to like the analogy to trademarks.

So I think there's at least a majority for a holding that says, in essence, that this is a narrowly tailored statute that protects a legitimate public interest, the government doesn't interpret it as applying to parody or other legitimate uses and neither do we, and there's no realistic danger of chilling truthful speech. I think they'll punt on the general question of whether false statements are not entitled to protection (other than the "breathing space" needed to protect truthful statements).
 
Dunstan said:
I think they'll punt on the general question of whether false statements are not entitled to protection (other than the "breathing space" needed to protect truthful statements).
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I'm not sure why they spent so much time on that. It seems to me that the approach is backward--asking to justify why a particular speech act is protected rather than asking what is the government interest in enforcing respect or honor for military medals.

In a way, it reminds me of the proposed state law (Indiana) that would prohibit mockery of the national anthem in public schools.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Sorry, I don't note that. I saw nothing about it being limited to official government meetings, or in any way hinging on why he made the statement on record at a government meeting.

[ETA: The only thing I see to that point was Mr. Libby's assertion, "It doesn't matter whether the lie was told in a public meeting or in a private conversation with a friend or family member. And the law punishes false claims to a military award regardless of whether harm results or even is likely to result in an individual case." That went unchallenged.]

Indeed, I do note that they focussed quite a bit on what I pointed out was the justification for the law given in the law--the idea of a general harm to medals in general. This is one way it differs from conventional fraud laws, as I said earlier. The general harm, in this law, is just presumed to exist.
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You said you couldn't see something in the Act.

Applying fundamentals of judicial interpretation, including the one explicated in the case cite I gave you, the justices quite clearly *did* see it, and used it in their questions.

I've earnestly attempted to show you how you missed the obvious, there's no point in moving the goal posts to the mindreading proposition that the justices agreed with you on some entirely different point, when they haven't even begun to render an opinion.
 
Dunstan said:
Hm. I had the opposite impression. I think Sotomayor would probably strike it down, and Breyer seemed to be searching for a rationale to do so with his questions about less restrictive alternatives (though I'm not sure he found one). I found it hard to get a good read on Ginsburg and Kagan's positions; they seemed to be probing around the slippery slope arguments, but that could just mean that they're looking for a way to uphold the statute without creating bad precedent.

And I think Scalia, Alito, and Roberts are pretty solid votes to uphold, and I'll assume Thomas would be with them. Ditto for Kennedy, though he would write a narrower opinion; like me, he seems to like the analogy to trademarks.

So I think there's at least a majority for a holding that says, in essence, that this is a narrowly tailored statute that protects a legitimate public interest, the government doesn't interpret it as applying to parody or other legitimate uses and neither do we, and there's no realistic danger of chilling truthful speech. I think they'll punt on the general question of whether false statements are not entitled to protection (other than the "breathing space" needed to protect truthful statements).
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You notice that they weren't exactly high-fiving Libby, either.
 
Decision expected on 28 June 2012. This is the last day of the Suprme Court's current term, and the decision will likely be overshadowed by at least one other decision expected on that day.
 
Well, I'm willing to go on record now, that I'll be surprised if the Stolen Valor ruling contains anything surprising.


:wink:
 
Tricky said:
Is it the lie that causes harm, or people who are dumb enough to believe it? Should GW Bush be arrested for telling lies about WMDs which led to the deaths of thousands of people? (You don't have to answer, TBK, I know what you think.)

I agree, though, that fraud should be prosecuted.
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So you're saying Bush did not even do anything morally wrong by lying? So what, we should jail anyone with sufficiently small I.Q.?! Regardless of whether the lies should be illegal, I'd still suggest it was a grave moral wrong he did by doing those lies. One has a moral responsibility for one's words.

Also, one can't help if one has a low I.Q.. One CAN help what one speaks.

And while the lying itself may not be the thing to make illegal, starting wars based on it should definitely have some consequences, imo.
 
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