Whilst ultimately narrowly upholding the conviction of Socialist politician and journalist Benjamin Gitlow for the publication of his manifesto that called for the violent overthrow of the American government under New York’s criminal anarchy law, the landmark case decided this day in 1925 by the US supreme court, headed by chief justice William Taft, significantly affirmed that amendment XIV did extend the First Amendment’s provisions (through the due process clause) protecting freedom of speech and the press from to the constituent states and their governments were bound to respect these fundamental liberties. 
One of the first major cases involving the Bill of Rights, it defined the scope of the guarantees and defined the standard to which a state’s or the federal government would be held should it try to criminalise or suppress publication or distribution. While most of the justices agreed that calling for an unlawful coup exceeded the limits of free speech, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr dissented, saying that governments should only be permitted to do so under the clear and present danger test and that indefinite advocacy is not the same thing as conscription and subversive action. Gitlow’s case was the first brought to the supreme court by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Gitlow was represented by renown defence attorney Clarence Darrow and the ruling has been cited in numerous later judgements as precedent.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a visit to Ellertshรคusen See (with synchronoptica)
seven years ago: the G7 in Quebec plus Project Maven
eight years ago: Trump motels plus J Edgar Hoover tried to convince Disney to produce Christian cartoons
nine years ago: plebiscites, the Bilderberg in Dresden, wage distribution in filmmaking, crimes of the art plus reflecting on y2k
ten years ago: the Pope defends science, Big Pharma, assorted links to revisit plus the Hobo Museum of Britt Iowa
