Episode 21 - The Bulwark of Liberty - Free Speech in 18th Century America, Part I
Clear and Present Danger - A history of free speech
Release Date: 02/14/2019
Episode 41 - Free Speech and Racial Justice: Friends or Foes?
Clear and Present Danger - A history of free speech
This episode will focus on what role the dynamic between censorship and free speech has played in maintaining and challenging racist and oppressive societies. The episode will use American slavery and segregation, British colonialism, and South African apartheid as case studies.
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Special Edition - Suzanne Nossel
Clear and Present Danger - A history of free speech
In this Special Edition, we will zoom in on current challenges to free speech – specifically in the US. With me to discuss this timely subject, I have CEO of PEN America, Suzanne Nossel, who has just published her new book Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All.
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Special Edition - Daphne Keller & Kate Klonick
Clear and Present Danger - A history of free speech
“Internet Speech Will Never Go Back to Normal” read a recent Atlantic article, that stated that “governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values.”
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Special Edition - Dunja Mijatović
Clear and Present Danger - A history of free speech
Since the coronavirus became a pandemic, governments around the world have adopted a wide range of measures affecting basic human rights. This includes many of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe all of whom are legally bound by the European Convention on Human Rights.
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Special Edition - Monika Bickert
Clear and Present Danger - A history of free speech
The Coronavirus has disrupted life as we know it. And the Internet overflows with torrents of data, news and updates about the ongoing crisis. But in parallel with the corona pandemic, WHO has warned of an “infodemic” of mis- and disinformation spreading through social media and messaging apps.
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Episode 40 - The Age of Human Rights: Tragedy and Triumph
Clear and Present Danger - A history of free speech
In this episode we will explore:
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Episode 39 - The Totalitarian Temptation – Part II - Der Untergang
Clear and Present Danger - A history of free speech
Weimar Germany was deeply conflicted about the value of free speech. On the one hand, freedom of expression was constitutionally protected. On the other hand, the constitution allowed censorship of cinema and “trash and filth” in literature.
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Episode 38 - The Totalitarian Temptation – Part I
Clear and Present Danger - A history of free speech
In this first of a two-part episode on totalitarianism in Communist Russia, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany, we will focus on the rise of communism and Italian fascism and the effects of these ideologies on free expression. Hopefully this journey into the darkest of pasts will help shed light on how to grapple with one of democracy’s eternal and inevitable dilemmas: What should be the limits of free speech?
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Episode 37 - Expert opinion: The History of Mass Surveillance, with Andreas Marklund
Clear and Present Danger - A history of free speech
In this episode, we discuss the history of mass surveillance and its consequences for freedom of expression and information. With me is Andreas Marklund who is the head of research at the ENIGMA Museum of Communication, in Copenhagen.
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Episode 36 - Expert opinion: Thomas Healy on how Oliver Wendell Holmes changed the history of free speech in America
Clear and Present Danger - A history of free speech
In this conversation, professor Thomas Healy explains how Wendell Holmes changed his mind on free speech and laid the foundation for the current strong legal protection of the First Amendment. Thomas Healy is a professor of law at Seton Hall University School of Law and the author of the award-winning book “The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind--And Changed the History of Free Speech in America”.
info_outline18th century America was impacted and influenced by the so-called Glorious Revolution in the Motherland. And no-one had a bigger impact on American attitudes towards freedom of speech than Cato’s Letters written by the Radical Whigs John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon. Cato´s Letters created a powerful free speech meme, that went viral in the colonies: “Freedom of Speech is the great Bulwark of Liberty”. The reach of Cato’s principles grew exponentially as colonists liked, shared and commented on them in newspapers, pamphlets and taverns. Americans were persuaded that “Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as publick liberty, without freedom of speech: Which is the right of every man”. As a consequence, grand juries and juries refused to indict and convict colonists for seditious libel when criticizing governments and officials.
Despite the practical defeat of libels laws in colonial courts, legislative assemblies continued to threaten free speech. Under legislative privilege provocative writers could be jailed and fined by their own representatives. And even American heroes were sometimes willing to sacrifice principle.
In this episode we’ll explore
- How coffee-houses expanded the public sphere by cultivating the sharing of news and ideas, including revolutionary ones.
- How the common law crime of seditious libel impacted writers
- How English writers including Matthew Tindal, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon paved the way for American ideas on free speech
- How the editor of the New England Courant in Boston combined anti-vaxxer propaganda with free speech advocacy
- How the 16-year old Benjamin Franklin used Cato’s Letters to argue for freedom of speech when his brother James was in jail
- How the New York Weekly Journal became America’s first opposition newspaper and justified its savage hit pieces on New York governor William Cosby with Cato’s free speech principles
- How a jury acquitted the printer of the New York Weekly Journal Peter Zenger, even though he was guilty according to the law
- How legislative privilege was used to punish colonialists for offending their own representatives
- How Benjamin Franklin defended legislative privilege and the jailing of a Pennsylvania man for his writings
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