Interpreting the First Amendment

     Interpretation has always been a big part of how the First Amendment freedoms are enforced. We learned earlier this year that it was only recently, historically speaking, that freedom of speech was even taken seriously. Well, has that table ever turned now.

     The National Labor Relations Act, or NLRA, is essentially a list of all the things your employer can't fire you for. The idea is to keep companies from denying rights to their workers through fear of unemployment. But as Teresa Tritch of the New York Times recently observed, "Employees have rights under the N.L.R.A., but no right to be informed of those rights" (full article here). Why? The First Amendment. Requiring companies to tell their workers anything at all would abrogate their freedom of speech, which is not only the right to say whatever you want, but also the right to not say whatever you don't want.

     Whenever I see two laws working against each other, I feel like there must be a deeper issue at the center of it. In this case, the problem is freedom of speech. In general, I'm a fan - as someone who plans to become a journalist, it's difficult to be against it - but I do feel like it's gained an aura of infallibility it doesn't deserve. There are instances when information does not want to be free, and it shouldn't be. There are even more instances when invoking the First Amendment turns into a legislative "so is your face", an irrelevant remark designed solely to make the other guy shut up. Requiring companies to post a poster doesn't seem much different than requiring the city to put up speed limit signs, or making toy manufacturers put safety information on boxes so small children don't choke. It's simply a method of telling people how their world works and what they can expect.

     So where do we go from here? Do we continue as we have begun, and preserve the freedom to not speak? Has the First Amendment, crusader of democracy, gotten too big for its britches and our needs? Or is there a way to reconcile the two sides, and keep freedom of speech at its current levels while enacting a little spirit of the law to deal with those who take it out of context? America doesn't do a whole lot of spirit of the law, seems to me, or fewer people on trial would get off on technicalities and loopholes. But hey, it's not my question to answer. Comments please! Exercise your freedom of speech.