ISIS’s Online Influence Raising First Amendment Questions

The Islamic State’s online recruiting efforts are making some legal scholars wonder whether it may be time to revisit the First Amendment’s establishment of free speech as inviolate, except where it presents a “clear and present danger.” Some believe that the government should have the right to shut down websites, chat rooms, or online lectures promoting the beliefs and methods of ISIS. In light of the extremist group’s very successful online recruiting efforts, Harvard law professor and former Obama administration official Cass R. Sunstein wrote in Bloomberg View this summer that, “it’s worth asking whether that test may be ripe for reconsideration.” In Slate, University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner wrote that The Islamic State’s ability to spread “ideas that lead directly to terrorist attacks … calls for new thinking about limits on freedom of speech.” However, constitutional law expert Geoffrey R. Stone dissents: “We’ve learned over 200 years of history that what seems like a sensible approach in the heat of the moment, in terms of restricting speech, is highly likely to be a bad judgement.”