The First Amendment Takes a Beating in the Supreme Court
A brief recap of oral arguments in the long-awaited Supreme Court case on state-sponsored censorship
Late in oral arguments yesterday during the Murthy v Missouri censorship case before the Supreme Court, newest Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson interrogated J. Benjamin Aguinaga, Solicitor General of Louisiana:
JACKSON: So my biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the most important time periods…
Can you help me? Because I’m really — I’m really worried about that because you’ve got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances from the government’s perspective, and you’re saying that the government can’t interact with the source of those problems.
“Can you help me?” Yes, I would love to help you, Justice Jackson, to a less challenging line of work… Hamstringing the government, Good God!
