Civil liberties of the United States
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Civil liberties of the United States are civil liberties (sometimes referred to as "civil privileges") guaranteed to citizens of the United States under the Constitution of the United States, as interpreted and clarified by its Supreme Court.
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[edit] Freedom of speech
Main article: Freedom of speech in the United States
Freedom of speech, protected by the First Amendment, allows people the freedom to express themselves and enjoy the expressions of others in nearly all instances, except at the Government's discretion.
A definition of civil liberties can be stated as, individual legal and constitutional protections against the government.
Even students may express themselves in government-run schools (Tinker v. Des Moines). Manner of dress is a form of expression (ibid.).
Freedom of speech in the US follows a gradated system, with different types of regulations subject to different levels of scrutiny in court challenges.
[edit] Time, place, or manner restrictions
These get the lowest level of scrutiny and are usually upheld, unless their requirements have an especially burdensome impact on speech. Note that any regulations that would force speakers to change how or what they say do not fall into this category (so the government cannot restrict one medium even if it leaves open another).
[edit] Content-based restrictions
Restrictions that require examining the content of speech to be applied must pass strict scrutiny.
[edit] Viewpoint-based restrictions
Restrictions that apply to certain viewpoints but not others face the highest level of scrutiny, and are almost always overturned, unless they fall into one of the courts special exceptions.
[edit] Special exceptions
Obscenity, defined by the Miller test by applying contemporary community standards, is one exception. It is speech to which all of the following apply: appeals to the prurient interest, depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. (This is usually applied to more hard-core forms of pornography.)
Fighting Words are words or phrases that are likely to induce the listener to get in a fight. This previously applied to words like nigger, but with people getting less sensitive to words, this exception is little-used.
Speech that presents a clear and present danger may also be restricted. The canonical example, enunciated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, is falsely yelling "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater. The trend since Holmes's time has been to restrict the clear and present danger exception to apply to speech which is completely apolitical in content.
Restrictions on commercial speech, defined as speech mainly in furtherance of selling a product, is subject to a lower level of scrutiny than other speech, although recently the court has taken steps to bring it closer to parity with other speech. This is why the government can ban advertisements for cigarettes and false information on corporate prospectuses (which try to sell stock in a company).
[edit] Prior restraint
If the government tries to restrain speech before it is spoken, as opposed to punishing it afterwards, it must: clearly define what's illegal, cover the minimum speech necessary, make a quick decision, be backed up by a court, bear the burden of suing and proving the speech is illegal, and show that allowing the speech would "surely result in direct, immediate and irreparable damage to our Nation and its people" (New York Times Co. v. United States). US courts have not permitted prior restraints since the case of Near v. Minnesota in 1931.
[edit] Sexual freedom
Sexual freedoms include the freedom to have an abortion (Roe v. Wade) and the freedom to have private consensual homosexual sex (Lawrence v. Texas).
[edit] Equal protection
Main article: Equal Protection Clause
Equal protection prevents the government from creating laws that are discriminatory in application or effect.
