page_title: First Amendment to the United States Constitution
section_title: Freedom of speech and of the press
hierarchical_section_title: First Amendment to the United States Constitution / Freedom of speech and of the press
caption_attribution_description: English: This image shows the inscription of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (15th December, 1791) in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
context_page_description: The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws which regulate an establishment of religion, prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights.
  The Bill of Rights was proposed to assuage Anti-Federalist opposition to Constitutional ratification. Initially, the First Amendment applied only to laws enacted by the Congress, and many of its provisions were interpreted more narrowly than they are today. Beginning with Gitlow v. New York, the Supreme Court applied the First Amendment to states—a process known as incorporation—through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
  In Everson v. Board of Education, the Court drew on Thomas Jefferson's correspondence to call for "a wall of separation between church and State", though the precise boundary of this separation remains in dispute.
context_section_description: The First Amendment broadly protects the rights of free speech and free press. Free speech means the free and public expression of opinions without censorship, interference and restraint by the government. The term "freedom of speech" embedded in the First Amendment encompasses the decision what to say as well as what not to say. Free press means the right of individuals to express themselves through publication and dissemination of information, ideas and opinions without interference, constraint or prosecution by the government. The Supreme Court in Chicago Police Dept. v. Mosley (1972) said: 
  "But, above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content. [...] To permit the continued building of our politics and culture, and to assure self-fulfillment for each individual, our people are guaranteed the right to express any thought, free from government censorship. The essence of this forbidden censorship is content control. Any restriction on expressive activity because of its content would completely undercut the "profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.""
  The level of protections with respect to free speech and free press given by the First Amendment is not limitless. As stated in his concurrence in Chicago Police Dept. v. Mosley (1972), Chief Justice Warren E. Burger said:
  "Numerous holdings of this Court attest to the fact that the First Amendment does not literally mean that we "are guaranteed the right to express any thought, free from government censorship." This statement is subject to some qualifications, as for example those of `Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476 (1957); Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568 (1942). See also New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964)."
  Attached to the rights of free speech and free press as the core rights to utter and to print are several peripheral rights which make these core rights more secure. The peripheral rights encompass not only freedom of association including privacy in one's associations, but also, in the words of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), "the  freedom of the entire university community", i.e. the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read as well as freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and freedom to teach.
caption: Inscription of the First Amendment (December 15, 1791) in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia
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