Civil rights v civil liberties at the ACLU
After decades of undue pessimism, civil libertarians should be moderately concerned
IN THE SUMMER of 1964 a television repairman and Klansman called Clarence Brandenburg invited a television reporter to join him at a hooded rally in rural Ohio. The resultant footage of Brandenburg and other goons standing by a burning cross and vowing to take “revengeance” against blacks and Jews landed him in jail for inciting violence. He was sprung by the Supreme Court, after it ruled that such a threat was too vague to abrogate his right to free speech. That precedent—the court’s last word on inflammatory language—was the nub of Donald Trump’s defence this week.
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Speak easy”
United States February 13th 2021
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From the February 13th 2021 edition
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