Thank Citizens United That You Can See ‘13 Hours’ This Weekend - This Friday, “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” will be released in theaters nationwide. The movie, based on the book “13 Hours” by Mitchell Zuckoff, is directed by Michael Bay and gives the public a chance to see one man’s take on what happened in Libya on September 11, 2012, when terrorists stormed our diplomatic compound and killed four Americans: Glen Doherty, Sean Smith, Ambassador Chris Stevens, and Tyrone Woods.
The decision to make this movie and release it so widely was likely unpopular with the Democratic political establishment. While the film focuses on the events on the ground in Benghazi, it is bound to generate interest about what was happening back in Washington and what President Obama and his secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, might have done to prevent the loss of American lives.
(Even though the introduction references the movie - "13 Hours" - the substance of the article deals with our First Amendment Rights and I have highlighted the following based on that theme. - CL)
Thanks to our First Amendment, there is nothing the Obama
administration can do about it. Government may not censor films about current
events, politics, or any other subject even if they might affect an election.
Indeed, they may not be censored even if they are designed to affect an
election.
Government may not censor films about current events, politics,
or any other subject even if they might affect an election.
That seems obvious to
anyone with even a passing knowledge of our First Amendment, but the Supreme
Court did not firmly decide this principle until 2009. That year, in a 5-4
decision, the court overturned a law in which Congress had granted the
administration the power to censor just such a film. By one vote in Citizens United v. FEC,
the Supreme Court struck down the government’s power to censor films or other
publications intended to influence elections.
In that
case, the Federal Election Commission sought to uphold their power under the
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) to limit communications close to
the time of an election. Specifically, the FEC wanted the Supreme Court to turn
back a challenge to their right to bar a group, Citizens United, from putting a
film, “Hillary: The Movie,” and all advertising for it on the airwaves until
after the 2008 election.
The FEC believed it had the unprecedented power to censor the
airwaves based on a BCRA provision that barred corporations or labor unions
from spending money on “electioneering communications” (i.e., advertisements
mentioning a candidate by name) for 60 days before a general election………….
At the oral argument on appeal, the Supreme Court justices probed
the limits of the power the government claimed for itself, and questioned how
it squared with the First Amendment. In one incredible back-and-forth, Chief
Justice John Roberts asked Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart if there
was “a 500-page book, and at the end it says, and so vote for X, the government
could ban that?” Stewart’s response: yes.
“Well,” he explains, “if it
says vote for X, it would be express advocacy and it would be covered by the
pre-existing Federal Election Campaign Act provision.” In the name of campaign
finance reform, the United States government argued it could ban books.
Citizens United Wasn’t Really about
Corporations as People
If you hadn’t heard this
before, it is likely because Citizens United has been presented in the
popular media as a case about the rights of corporations. Maybe in 2010, when
the case was decided, you saw some opinion piece forwarded around Facebook that
said “Today, the Supreme Court said corporations are people.” Certainly, you’ve
heard talking points from Democratic politicians about the need to
overturn Citizens Unitedbecause of the dangerous new powers the court bestowed
on Big Business.
As early as 1936, the
Supreme Court had held that newspapers, although they were corporations, were
entitled to the protection of the First Amendment.
In their lie, there is a kernel of truth. There was a corporation
involved in the case: Citizens United, which claimed its film was protected
speech under the First Amendment. But this is nothing new. As early as 1936,
the Supreme Court had held that newspapers, although they were corporations,
were entitled to the protection of the First Amendment (that
case, Grosjean v. American Press Co., also involved a Democratic
administration trying to silence unfavorable coverage).
The principle was reaffirmed many times since
then. Much of the unfavorable coverage of the court’s decision was carried in
media outlets owned by for-profit corporations. Many were newspapers that, like
Citizens United, make explicit endorsements of candidates before every election
and do so under the protection of the First Amendment…..
Would a Congress with the power to prohibit some corporate
speech continue to allow other corporate speech based on the simple expedient
the speaker of not expressly advocating for or against an individual candidate?
Without Citizens
United, nothing
would stop them from further restricting the marketplace of political ideas.
Whether they would or not, the Supreme Court agreed with the drafters
of the First Amendment that Congress cannot be trusted to make that decision.
The Bill of Rights was the first Congress’s way of limiting itself, reassuring
the people of the new republic that the federal government would not ever be
granted the power to take away those natural rights that are the birthright of
a free people.
By a 5-4
vote, those rights were upheld for another generation. If you choose to watch
“13 Hours” this weekend, remember Citizens United, and how close we came to losing the right to
make that choice.
