Speech

Free speech issues seem to bubbling up a lot lately in our post 9/11 world and with the rise of social media on the internet. I recently caught an absorbing HBO documentary on the subject, Shouting Fire: Stories From the Edge of Free Speech.

Filmmaker Liz Garbus uses interviews with her father, famed First Amendment attorney Martin Garbus, to wrap some key recent situations where free speech has been under attack. She also examines and provides some cool footage of historically significant cases that her father was involved with, including the Pentagon Papers and the Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois. Haven't thought about those since my freshman law class at SU.

It would have been great to see the topic expanded a bit, but on the whole, the film serves as an important reminder that protecting free speech means also protecting speech we oppose. It is also interesting to ponder how much free speech we really have in our media-driven and hyper-sensitive country these days vs. what our founding fathers may have envisioned in drafting the Bill of Rights. Which reminds me, I still need to read Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy's book, In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action, to see what other atrocities have been committed against our national brochure for great living.

Did I say that out loud?