National Security and the Disparate Impact of Free Speech Rules

Authors

Frederick Schauer, John F. Kennedy School of Government

First Page

115

Document Type

Article

Abstract

In addressing questions of censorship, including commonly neglected ones of what censorship is and what is wrong with it, I want to focus on the issues raised by censorship in the context of war, national security, and national defense. Here more than in other areas the debates about censorship are particularly strident, and here also it turns out that who is saying what about censorship often says as much about the speaker as about the activity complained of. More specifically, various free speech and free press principles not only serve to allocate power between government and speaker, but also allocate power among speakers of different types. Like most other legal rules, free speech rules frequently have a disproportionate impact on different segments of the population. When that disproportionate impact is based on many of the kinds of distinctions that free speech principles commonly abhor, the phenomenon of differential impact is both interesting and troubling.

Recommended Citation

Frederick Schauer, National Security and the Disparate Impact of Free Speech Rules, 3 St. Thomas L. Rev. 115 (1991).
Available at: https://scholarship.stu.edu/stlr/vol3/iss1/11