First Amendment Trivia Questions
1. Name the Seven Dirty Words you can't say on television?
2. Bonus point: What is the name of the Supreme Court case that held that the FCC could regulate "indecent" speech?
3. In 1996, Citizens in Seabrook New Hampshire sought to cut the public library's budget and then threatened to close down the public library if the library ran a previously scheduled lecture. The library cancelled the lecture. What was the lecture about?
4. Who said "I know if when I see it" and what is "it'? Bonus point/hint: Name the Supreme Court case where this line comes from.
5. The First Amendment states "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Given that the language of the Amendment only applies to Congress, under what authority does this law apply to the states and localities.
6. There have been several attempts to prohibit online anonymous speech. Name two classic American political treatises that were originally published anonymously?
7. What Great American Novel was published pseudanonymously?
8. What did the United States Supreme Court in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 115 S.Ct. 1511 (1995) rule must be permitted to be done anonymously.
9. Well before the advent of the Internet, a famous British writer wrote anonymously that "Big Brother is watching you." What's the book, who's the author, and what's his real name?
10. Name four crimes or civil offenses, of unquestionable constitutionality, which often make a person liable merely for uttering or publishing words?
11. In 1538, Henry VIII imposes a requirement that anything printed must first obtain approval of the Crown licensors. There were two purposes behind this law--what were they?
12. In Cohen v. California, former Justice John Harlan that "One man's vulgarity is another's lyric" What was the specific vulgarity he was referring to?
13. The 1990's marked the first time in U.S. history that any work of music had been criminal prosecuted for obscenity, and the first time an Art Museum or Art curator had been prosecuted for obscenity. What were the two cases?
14. In Ohio in the mid 1990's, some communities blacklisted a video called "Doing it Debbie's Way" Who was Debbie and what was she doing?
15. Name two arguably indecent sections of the bible.