You have a right to speak to those who choose to hear you (to wit: not be punished for doing so). That is the point of the ruling in question: Citizens United made a film (acknowledged by the court as none other than a 90 minute campaign commercial directed at a particular candidate) and accepted money to "speak" (via pay-per-view, prepaid by corporate supporters) to those who made a deliberate and positive effort to listen; current law forbade them from doing so, and there was no other way to allow it while preserving the bulk of the abridging law without instilling a "chilling effect" on other lawful political speech (which would be deemed so by voluminous case-by-case analysis, there being no bright line).
So is it OK for Congress to ban New York Times from distributing their paper? After all, they still can speak as much as they want, and if you want to listen to them you can come to their office or to their homes and listen, and nobody has right to be heard beyond that?
ctdonath|12 years ago
smsm42|12 years ago