Today, January 28th, my group and I traveled down to wall street to meet with a prolific first amendment lawyer, Floyd Abrams. By the time Abrams was in college, he had taken a liking to freedom of speech related topics. During high school he had participated in many exercises of his first amendment right, including the advocation for the end of the Vietnam war. He would hold signs up and other posters, publicly stating his and other dislike for the intervention of the United States in Vietnam. He had also heard of others, specifically a man who war a black armband to school in protest of the war. When the schools administration demanded he remove it, he refused. He then shortly expelled afterwards. These types of issues and controversy attracted Abrams to becoming a lawyer, and a successful one at that. Floyd Abrams has done some truly admirable work during his time as a first amendment lawyer, fighting for the New York times on the pentagon papers case as well as participating in many other glorified moments in history. He has made it to the supreme court fifteen times. I would like to thank him for meeting with us today and for reviewing many topics such as: The right to be forgotten, how our speech differs from others, they ways our country allows certain hate speech, and whether or not potential dangerous speech should be limited.

On the topic of how our country differs from others in certain aspects related to the rights we have, we discussed over how England deals free speech. Abrams brought up a law in England that states that no journalists can report on a crime before the criminal goes to trial. This is to prevent any and all affect the news may have over the publics opinion, guaranteeing the criminal a fare trial. We, however, are lacking in this law, allowing any reporter to express his or her opinion before the person receives a judgment. Abrams believed that as long as it was factually correct the reporter should be allowed to complete their job. We also discussed the right to be forgotten. This right can be found in America as well as England. It essentially helps people escape from previos points in their life that no longer bare relevance today. Anyone can go up to an internet giant, such as Google, and ask for a piece of information regarding themselves to be removed. This can be a news article to a YouTube video. Unlike our previous interviewee, Arch Puddington, Abrams thought this right shouldn’t be allowed in today’s society. Again, as long as it is good and truthful reporting, we have no reason to remove it.

We also brought up the hate speech that our country tolerates while others would not. Our country is unique in how it allows speech that hurts other people. This ranges from homophobia to blunt racism. Our country see all speech as just speech, no matter what it may contain. It is our job as the people to censor our selves from becoming bigoted. If our government were to interpret what speech is bad and or wrong, we might be left with little to no free speech. This is why in moments of profanity, our government remains distant. We also asked him whether, in his opinion this speech should be limited, or speech that could jeopardize national security. He responded by saying how our country is great because you truly have the ability to say what you want to say. Our country is amazing in how it is truly the leader of all things first amendment related. The down side to this is of course the hate speech, but even that just signifies our freedom. He did say that something national security related was another story. Any speech that could jeopardize our espionage program or the lives of innocents shouldn’t be released.

He made a point that freedom of speech could never become universal. The reason for this is because the varying governments of the world have varying ideas of what free speech means. We would never get the same speech ubiquitous. I would like to that him personally for granting us his time. We all understand how important he is, and to have met with him in person was truly a pleasure. Thank you.