Lying is free speech too

[bemildred]

Just for the record, I disagree with this. Deciding what constitutes "lying" in an election is open to dispute, but there is a large area where almost all can agree, the provably untrue or misleading statements, such as Obama's birthplace, and that area ought to carry penalties. Politicians should worry about it when they think about lying.

Does the 1st Amendment allow states to make it a criminal offense to disseminate false statements about a political candidate? Should citizens who fear that their free speech will be chilled by such a law be permitted to challenge it even if they aren't in danger of imminent prosecution?

Only the second question will be argued before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, but it is inextricably linked to the first one. If the court rules that the Susan B. Anthony List, an antiabortion group, may not challenge Ohio's criminalization of false political speech, that law and similar ones in other states will remain on the books.

Ohio's law prohibits false statements about a candidate if they are made knowingly or with reckless disregard of whether they might be false. If the Ohio Elections Commission decides the law was violated, it "shall refer" the matter to prosecutors.

During the 2010 election campaign, the Susan B. Anthony List planned to post an ad on billboards accusing then-Rep. Steven Driehaus (D-Ohio) of voting "for taxpayer-funded abortion" when he supported the Affordable Care Act. Driehaus learned about the forthcoming ad and complained to the commission. Fearing legal consequences, the ad agency that owned the billboard space refused to post the ad. A three-member panel of the commission found "probable cause" that the statement was false.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-lying-20140420,0,1265902.story

[Helen Borg]

1. Libel can get you in trouble.

Libel is always based on a provable lie, I think...

[bemildred]

2. Yeah, and legal process is expensive and time consuming.

So you can get away with a lot. But it does happen, there are boundaries still.

Edit: to be clear, what I would advocate is stricter boundaries within the special context of politics. But it's a tricky question to resolve, any policing of speech you allow tends to get misused.