WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — For Americans, the words are practically sacred: the First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees freedom of speech.
But that right is now the subject of bitter debate, following the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
On Thursday, several high-ranking Democrats accused President Donald Trump of waging war on free speech, after he celebrated ABC’s suspension of talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, who accused the political right of using Kirk’s death to score points.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a rights advocacy group, accused the Trump administration of operating outside constitutional safeguards to target its opponents, likening it to the Red Scare of the late 1940 and 1950s under senator Joseph McCarthy.
“This is beyond McCarthyism. Trump officials are repeatedly abusing their power to stop ideas they don’t like, deciding who can speak, write, and even joke,” said Christopher Anders, director of the ACLU’s democracy and technology division.
So what does the First Amendment say? And why is it up for debate?
‘How we identify ourselves’
Ratified in 1791, the Bill of Rights comprises the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, protecting the fundamental rights of Americans.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,” the First Amendment says.
For David Super, a professor at Georgetown University’s law school, the amendment is “really how we identify ourselves as a nation.”
Beyond the varied ethnicities and background of the nation’s 340 million people, “we are thought to be drawn together by a belief in open discussion and a belief that the government can’t shut any of us up,” Super told Agence France-Presse.
The First Amendment even protects speech that is “morally repulsive,” explained Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Volokh, however, emphasized that the history of the United States has been marked by attempts to stifle dissident voices.
