UNITED STATES v. STEVENS April 2010
Since its enactment, the First Amendment has permitted restrictions on a few historic categories of speech–including obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, and speech integral to criminal conduct–that “have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem,” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572.
…But the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits. The Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweigh the costs. New York v. Ferber, 458 U. S. 747, distinguished. Pp. 5-9.
H/T Pope Hat
