the supreme court first decided that the internet is protected by the first amendment in 1897.
the supreme court first decided that the internet is protected by the first amendment in 1897.
when did the supreme court first decide that the internet is protected by the first amendment?
1897
congress has permitted producer groups to make checkoffs mandatory, and this aspect has generated legal challenges by some producers, who contend they must pay taxes for activities they would not underwrite voluntarily. the u.s. supreme court [in united states v. united foods, inc., 533 u.s. 405, 412 (2001)] ruled that the mushroom check-off violated the constitutional free speech provisions (first amendment), creating uncertainty about the future of other check-offs. since then, separate lower federal courts have ruled that various check-offs also are unconstitutional. however, on may 23, 2005, the supreme court ruled that the beef check-off does not violate the first amendment. in its decision, johanns v. livestock marketing association and nebraska cattlemen v. livestock marketing association (nos. 03-1164 and 03-1165), a majority of the court agreed with check-off defenders that the programs are in fact "government speech" (an issue that was not considered in the mushroom decision)."compelled funding of government speech does not alone raise first amendment concerns,"..."citizens may challenge compelled support of private speech, but have no first amendment right not to fund government speech." a montana federal court ruled in june 2017 that the operation of the beef checkoff there was unconstitutional.
commodity checkoff program
a second major criticism of the case is that the court did not clearly define what the first amendment violation was. the supreme court has a long-standing doctrine of not ruling on a statute's constitutionality if a case may be decided on statutory grounds. subsequently, the "beck" court's discussion of first amendment issues was perfunctory, acknowledging that there might be grounds for a first amendment challenge but refusing to discuss the issue further. this has generated confusion among legal scholars and workers as to what first amendment challenges may be brought. for example, critics have pointed out that a claim under the first amendment can only be brought when there is state action, as opposed to private action. the supreme court's early agency fee decisions ("hanson," "street," and "ellis") found that state action occurred under the railway labor act because the act prohibited union shops. yet, although the court went to great lengths to identify the similarities between the rla and nlra in "beck," the court (in "dicta") refused to decide whether state action had occurred under the nlra. legal scholars have pointed out that the "beck" court cited two cases which did find state action under the nlra, but did not make any determination in "beck." one scholar has concluded that the court's tests for determining state action are not useful enough to determine the issue. adding to the confusion is that the supreme court has never made it clear how to apply a first amendment analysis to labor law. the court and legal scholars point out that labor law is considered unique in the american statutory and constitutional framework, which may mean that traditional first amendment analyses do not apply. "[t]he court consistently has upheld the validity...of the labor act. in doing so, the court has repeatedly referred to the special nature of labor legislation to explain its unusual deference to a statute so incompatible with judicially developed constitutional norms." it may be that the court's existing standard for assessing government interference with speech (the strict scrutiny standard) is inappopriate to apply to labor law. many of these analyses conclude that the "beck" court should have clarified these issues, and absent such clarification the first amendment rights of workers remain unprotected.
communications workers of america v. beck