The Soul of the First Amendment ─ Why Freedom of Speech Matters

The right of Americans to voice their beliefs without government approval or oversight is protected under what may well be the most honored and least understood addendum to the US Constitution—the First Amendment. Floyd Abrams, a noted lawyer and award-winning legal scholar specializing in First Amendment issues, examines the degree to which American law protects free speech more often, more intensely, and more controversially than is the case anywhere else in the world, including democratic nations such as Canada and England. In this lively, powerful, and provocative work, the author addresses legal issues from the adoption of the Bill of Rights through recent cases such as Citizens United. He also examines the repeated conflicts between claims of free speech and those of national security occasioned by the publication of classified material such as was contained in the Pentagon Papers and was made public by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden.

Floyd Abrams is senior counsel in the New York law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law, and author of several books, including Friend of the Court: On the Front Lines with the First Amendment (Yale University Press, 2013). Abrams has argued frequently in the Supreme Court in First Amendment cases ranging from the Pentagon Papers case to Citizens United.