SCOTUS allows sex offenders on social media

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bignflnut
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SCOTUS allows sex offenders on social media

Post by bignflnut »

In an opinion that was joined in full by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, Justice Anthony Kennedy began by outlining what he described as a “fundamental principle of the First Amendment”: that everyone should “have access to places where they can speak and listen, and then, after reflection, speak and listen once more.” And even if once it may have been hard to determine which places are “the most important” “for the exchange of views,” Kennedy concluded, it isn’t hard now. Instead, he reasoned, it is “clear” that the Internet and, in particular, social media provide such opportunities, with “three times the population of North America” now using Facebook. Emphasizing that Packingham’s case “is one of the first this Court has taken to address the relationship between the First Amendment and the modern Internet,” Kennedy warned that the court should “exercise extreme caution before suggesting that the First Amendment provides scant protection for access” to ubiquitous social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Here, Kennedy reasoned, North Carolina’s law cannot pass constitutional muster. Kennedy agreed with the state that sex offenders should not be able to have access to “vulnerable victims” like children – the stated purpose of the law. And he took as a given, for the sake of argument, that states could “enact specific, narrowly tailored laws that prohibit a sex offender from engaging in conduct that often presages a sexual crime.” But North Carolina’s law goes too far, he explained, because it stifles “lawful speech as the means to suppress unlawful speech.” By barring sex offenders from using social-networking sites, he continued, the state “with one broad stroke bars access to what for many are the principal sources for knowing current events, checking ads for employment, speaking and listening in the modern public square, and otherwise exploring the vast realms of human thought and knowledge.” “In sum,” Kennedy concluded, “to foreclose access to social media altogether is to prevent the user from engaging in the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights.”

Justice Samuel Alito, in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas, agreed with Kennedy – to a point. Much like Kennedy, Alito acknowledged that states have an interest in protecting children from abuse; moreover, he added, “it is legitimate and entirely reasonable for States to try to stop abuse from occurring before it happens.” But, he noted, the North Carolina law under which Packingham was convicted must ultimately be deemed unconstitutional because it also bars sex offenders from gaining access to “a large number of websites” – including, but not limited to, Amazon, The Washington Post, and WebMD – “that are most unlikely to facilitate the commission of a sex crime against a child.”
Interesting to read this thru the lens of the RKBA.
This doesn't seem to apply just in the home.
that everyone should “have access to places where they can speak and listen, and then, after reflection, speak and listen once more.”
So access to locations shouldn't be restricted, but if you're carrying a weapon legitimately, then by all means, no schools, hospitals, government buildings etc for you? Limiting access to RKBA seems to limit access to 1A, no?
“In sum,” Kennedy concluded, “to foreclose access to social media altogether is to prevent the user from engaging in the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights.”
What about the legitimate exercise of 2A? These people have been freed of jail, not given the death penalty (which may have been appropriate for the crime, but we've gone limp on these sex crimes), but they're forever banned from RKBA, while fully enjoying "the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights"?

Alito advocates the pre-crime department.
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Re: SCOTUS allows sex offenders on social media

Post by WestonDon »

No doubt if the same line of reasoning had been applied in the Heller case it would have been a unanimous decision and there would have been no "reasonable restrictions" nonsense.
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Re: SCOTUS allows sex offenders on social media

Post by evan price »

Since this will inevitably lead to yet another property rights vs individual rights discussion that goes nowhere and is not directly rkba it's closed.
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