Introducing ChiTown Patriots PAC
Welcome
ChiTown Patriots P.A.C. is foremost interested, in informing the Illinois Voters on ISSUES Primarily based on law, but will also use our Political Free Speech To stand on the law & against what is not Constitutional, will use this platform to educate the truth, & not be cancelled or silenced; Standing on was clearly laid out in the U.S. Supreme Court case of; New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that the freedom of speech protections in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restrict the ability of public officials to sue for defamation.
Opinion of the Court
Justice William J. Brennan Jr. authored the Court's opinion, and five other justices joined it. The Court began by explaining that criticizing government and public officials was at the core of the American constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
The general proposition that freedom of expression upon public questions is secured by the First Amendment has long been settled by our decisions. The constitutional safeguard, we have said, "was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people." ... "[I]t is a prized American privilege to speak one's mind, although not always with perfect taste, on all public institutions." ... The First Amendment, said Judge Learned Hand, "presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many, this is, and always will be, folly; but we have staked upon it our all."
— Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 269–70 (citations omitted).
The Court said that because of these core American free-speech principles, it would have to consider Sullivan's defamation claims "against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."
With this background, the Court framed the case around the question of whether this American constitutional commitment to free speech required loosening traditional defamation laws.
The present advertisement, as an expression of grievance and protest on one of the major public issues of our time, would seem clearly to qualify for the constitutional protection. The question is whether it forfeits that protection by the falsity of some of its factual statements and by its alleged defamation of respondent.
— Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 271. Disclaimer and reservation of Rights