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What does clear and Present Danger mean?
What is the “clear and present danger” test?
What is direct incitement vs 'clear and Present Danger'?
Why is a threat considered a clear and Present Danger?
The meaning of CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER is a risk or threat to safety or other public interests that is serious and imminent; especially : one that justifies limitation of a right (as freedom of speech or press) by the legislative or executive branch of government.
clear and present danger - A situation where speech or actions could potentially cause immediate harm or disruption, losing First Amendment protections.
clear and present danger. the expression used by the US Supreme Court to indicate a situation in which complete freedom of speech is not a person's legal right. No one has a right to say something that would cause a clear (= obvious) and present (= immediate) danger to other people.
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A high-level overview of what constitutes free speech, as well as the restrictions on free speech permitted by the Supreme Court.
Freedom of expression is one of the most fundamental individual liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, as democracy depends upon the free exchange of ideas.
Schenck v. United States (1919) - During World War I, socialist antiwar activists Charles Schenck and Elizabeth Baer mailed 15,000 fliers urging men to resist the military draft. They were arrested under the Espionage Act of 1917, which banned interference with military operations or supporting US enemies during wartime. The resulting Supreme Court case concerned whether the Espionage Act violated freedom of speech. The Court upheld the Espionage Act, ruling that the speech creating a “clear and present danger” was not protected by the First Amendment.
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) - Iowa teenagers Mary Beth Tinker, her brother John, and their friend Christopher Eckhardt were suspended from their public high school for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. In the resulting case, the Supreme Court ruled that the armbands were a form of symbolic speech, which is protected by the First Amendment, and therefore the school had violated the students’ First Amendment rights.
Balancing liberty and order — The Supreme Court has supported the free speech rights of individuals engaged in protest, including nonverbal “symbolic speech.” But freedom of speech is not absolute: the Court has upheld restrictions on defamatory and obscene speech, as well as speech that incites violence or lawbreaking.
Why do you think the Court has struggled to define obscenity? How do we know if material is obscene, and under what circumstances should communities be permitted to ban obscene materials?
Do you think the government should be allowed to restrict certain forms of speech during wartime? Why or why not?
Should the First Amendment protect hate speech? Why or why not?
[Notes and attributions]
The clear and present danger rule, announced in schenck v. united states (1919), was the earliest freedom of speech doctrine of the Supreme Court.
clear and present danger. The standard set by the Supreme Court for judging when freedom of speech may lawfully be limited. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes , Jr., illustrated the point by arguing that no one has a constitutional right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater when no fire is present, for such action would pose a “clear and ...
May 14, 2024 · Definitions of clear and present danger. noun. a standard for judging when freedom of speech can be abridged. “no one has a right to shout `fire' in a crowded theater when there is no fire because such an action would pose a clear and present danger to public safety”. see more.
