Alleged "harassment" exception

[Volokh, Eugene]

        I think I'm not acquainted with the law in this area, and I'm
unaware of any evidence that "harassment has been a traditional exception to
free speech protection for eons."  Is there some authority for this
proposition that I'm missing?

        Note that in the free speech area the court *has* routinely struck
down speech restrictions even when they've been accepted for "time out of
mind" -- consider sedition laws, traditionally broad libel of laws, contempt
of court punishment for writing items critical of the judge, obscenity law,
blasphemy laws (not explicit struck down but pretty broadly assumed to be
unconstitutional today), and the like.  But again, I know of no evidence
that "harassment," however defined, has indeed been considered punishable
"time out of mind" despite the 1st Am.



Leslie Goldstein writes:

> to repeat, this is not something new.  Harassment has been a traditional
> exception to free speech protection for eons.  As FF liked to say, "time
> out of mind..."
>
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