------------------------------------------------- The use of the mails is an important and necessary element of the right to free speech under this amendment. Associated Students of University of California at Riverside v. Attorney ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Generaly of U.S., D.C. Cal. 1973, 368 F. Supp. 11 ------------------------------------------------- This clause is broad enough to comprehend the right to correspond with others. Palmigiano v. Travisono, D.C.R.I. 1970, 317 F. Supp. 776 -------------------------------------------------------- The government has no right to substitute its judgement for the judgement of the individual in deciding what materials he shall receive through the mails; such censorship cannot be exercised for the individual as purported agent, as parens patriae, or otherwise. U.S. v. Treatman, D.c.cal, 1976, 408 F. Supp. 944 ------------------------------------------------- V. SPECTRUM OF PROTECTED SPEECH IS WIDE. The right of freedom of speech and press includes not only right to utter or to print, but right to distribute, right to receive, right to read and freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and freedom to teach. Griswold v. State of Conn., Conn. 1965, 85 S Ct 1678, 381 U.S. 479, ------------------------------------------------------------------- 14 L.Ed 2d 510 -------------- All ideas having even the slightest social importance - unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion - have the full protection of the constitutional guarantees of free speech and press, unless excludable because they encroach upon the limited area of more important interests. Roth v. United States, 354 US 476, 77 S Ct 1304 ----------------------------------------------- The First Amendment does not protect speech and assembly only to the extent it can be characterized as political; great secular causes, with smaller ones, are guarded. Connick v. Meyers, 461 US 138, 103 S Ct 1684, 75 L.Ed 2d 708 ------------------------------------------------------------ Under the First Amendment, there is no such thing as a false idea; however pernicious an opinion may seem, its correction depends not on the conscience of judges and juries but on the competition of other ideas. Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc, 418 US 323, 94 S Ct 2997, 41 L.Ed 2d 789 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Under freedom of speech and of the press, protection is afforded even to opinions that are loathed and believed to be fraught with death. Monitor Patriot Co. v. Roy, 401 US 265, 91 S Ct 621, 28 L.Ed 2d 35 ------------------------------------------------------------------ So long as the means are peaceful, the communication need not meet standards of acceptability in order to be protected by the constitutional guaranty of freedom of expression. Cohen v. California, 403 US 15, 91 S Ct 1780, 29 L.Ed 2d 284