[justshutupandtakeit]

Congress made no law abridging freedom of speech. Anyone can say anything they want at any time. However, government licenses the air waves and that allows it to restrict certain activities wrt to elections. The ability to regulate elections is in the constitution.

You can get on a street corner at any time and say anything about anyone. You can print newspaper ads in the same manner. However the public ownership of the air waves introduced an element never thought about by the founders.

That aspect of the law is a tiny element of it and easily avoided so easily that it is hardly an abridgement.

[William Tell]

justshutupandtakeit said: "Congress made no law abridging freedom of speech. Anyone can say anything they want at any time. However, government licenses the air waves and that allows it to restrict certain activities wrt to elections. "

Wrong and not very clever.

Even you know that "speech" is not limited to that which is spoken aloud on street corners. The federal monopoly on use of the airways in no way entitles the government to restrict speech spoken into a microphone.

As for the suggestion that the government has some special power to restrict "certain activities" with respect to elections, the First Amendment makes clear that it has no such power to include speech in such activities.

[supercat]

Congress made no law abridging freedom of speech. Anyone can say anything they want at any time. However, government licenses the air waves and that allows it to restrict certain activities wrt to elections. The ability to regulate elections is in the constitution.

Per CFR, someone who prints and sends more than 500 mailings which mention a candidate in an upcoming election without first having asked the government's permission is guilty of a felony. Is that not a First Amendment issue?