Is prohibiting possession of obscene publications unconstitutional? In the Supreme Court Case Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), the Court declared that the &quot;mere private possession of obscene matter cannot constitutionally be made a crime&quot;, at 559. However, it has been made clear by the Supreme Court that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. For example, in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002), the Court noted that &quot;pornography can be banned only if obscene&quot;, at 240. Aren't the two statements in Stanley and Ashcroft contradictory? What am I missing?
Overview The two statements, properly understood, are not inconsistent, and cannot be taken to mean that the Court has overruled Stanley, although the US Supreme Court can and does reverse its own prior decisions when it sees fit. Cases The five most relevant cases here are, in chronological order (which is significant): Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957) Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969) Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973) New York v. Ferber, 458 U. S. 747 (1982) Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002) Note that Stanley refereed to the definition of obscenity from Roth, not the later (and still current) Miller standard. Roth covered two cases, one about mailing allegedly obscene publications, and one about possessing such publications with intent to sell them. Miller was about the unsolicited mass mailing of ads for works of erotica. It was alleged that the ads themselves were obscene, as well as the works advertised. Ferber dealt with a bookstore distributing child porn that was allegedly not obscene under Miller. Ashcroft dealt with laws attempting to extend the child pornography rules to images created using adults who appeared to be minors, or using computers to create images when no actual person had been involved as a model or subject. The law in question purported to prohibit such images whether or not they were obscene under Miller (or indeed under the earlier Roth standard.) Only Stanley dealt with the purely private possession of allegedly obscene images that were not alleged to be &quot;child porn&quot;. Stanley The Stanley opinion states (at 560) that: Georgia concedes that the present case appears to be one of &quot;first impression . . . on this exact point,&quot; ... That is, that the issue had not previously been addressed in case law, and so was not included in the Roth decision. The opinion goes on to state (at 560-563): It is true that Roth does declare, seemingly without qualification, that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. That statement has been repeated in various forms in subsequent cases. See, e.g., Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 361 U. S. 152 (1959); Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U. S. 184, 378 U. S. 186-187 (1964) (opinion of BRENNAN, J.); Ginsberg v. New York, supra, at 390 U. S. 635. However, neither Roth nor any subsequent decision of this Court dealt with the precise problem involved in the present case. Roth was convicted of mailing obscene circulars and advertising, and an obscene book, in violation of a federal obscenity statute. The defendant in a companion case, Alberts v. California, 354 U. S. 476 (1957), was convicted of &quot;lewdly keeping for sale obscene and indecent books, and [of] writing, composing and publishing an obscene advertisement of them. . . .&quot; Id. at 354 U. S. 481. None of the statements cited by the Court in Roth for the proposition that &quot;this Court has always assumed that obscenity is not protected by the freedoms of speech and press&quot; were made in the context of a statute punishing mere private possession of obscene material; the cases cited deal for the most part with use of the mails to distribute objectionable material or with some form of public distribution or dissemination. Moreover, none of this Court's decisions subsequent to Roth involved prosecution for private possession of obscene materials. Those cases dealt with the power of the State and Federal Governments to prohibit or regulate certain public actions taken or intended to be taken with respect to obscene matter. Indeed, with one exception, we have been unable to discover any case in which the issue in the present case has been fully considered. In this context, we do not believe that this case can be decided simply by citing Roth. Roth and its progeny certainly do mean that the First and Fourteenth Amendments recognize a valid governmental interest in dealing with the problem of obscenity. But the assertion of that interest cannot, in every context, be insulated from all constitutional protections. Neither Roth nor any other decision of this Court reaches that far. In short, statements in Roth, and later cases that rely on Roth prior to Stanley that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment were obiter dicta (comments by the way) as far as purely private possession was concerned, and were not binding precedent. Ferber In New York v. Ferber the Court held that teh Miller standard does not apply to child pornography. It wrote (at 756): The Miller standard, like its predecessors, was an accommodation between the State's interests in protecting the &quot;sensibilities of unwilling recipients&quot; from exposure to pornographic material and the dangers of censorship inherent in unabashedly content-based laws. Like obscenity statutes, laws directed at the dissemination of child pornography run the risk of suppressing protected expression by allowing the hand of the censor to become unduly heavy. ..., however, we are persuaded that the States are entitled to greater leeway in the regulation of pornographic depictions of children. ... The legislative judgment, as well as the judgment found in the relevant literature, is that the use of children as subjects of pornographic materials is harmful to the physiological, emotional, and mental health of the child. That judgment, we think, easily passes muster under the First Amendment. Second. The distribution of photographs and films depicting sexual activity by juveniles is intrinsically related to the sexual abuse of children in at least two ways. First, the materials produced are a permanent record of the children's participation and the harm to the child is exacerbated by their circulation. [Footnote 10] Second, the distribution network for child pornography must be closed if the production of material which requires the sexual exploitation of children is to be effectively controlled. Indeed, there is no serious contention that the legislature was unjustified in believing that it is difficult, if not impossible, to halt the exploitation of children by pursuing only those who produce the photographs and movies. While the production of pornographic materials is a low profile, clandestine industry, the need to market the resulting products requires a visible apparatus of distribution. The most expeditious, if not the only practical, method of law enforcement may be to dry up the market for this material by imposing severe criminal penalties on persons selling, advertising, or otherwise promoting the product. Based on this reasoning, Ferber held that laws against child porn may prohibit content that is not obscene under Miller Ashcroft Now we come to Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition. That was a case about alleged child porn. The laws in that area are different. Existing law makes criminal the mere possession of child porn. The Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (CPPA) sought to broaden this to include &quot;virtual child porn&quot; where no actual child was involved in the production process. The Court wrote: By prohibiting child pornography that does not depict an actual child, the statute goes beyond New York v. Ferber, 458 U. S. 747 (1982), which distinguished child pornography from other sexually explicit speech because of the State's interest in protecting the children exploited by the production process. See id., at 758. As a general rule, pornography can be banned only if obscene, but under Ferber, pornography showing minors can be proscribed whether or not the images are obscene under the definition set forth in Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15 (1973). Ferber recognized that &quot;[t]he Miller standard, like all general definitions of what may be banned as obscene, does not reflect the State's particular and more compelling interest in prosecuting those who promote the sexual exploitation of children.&quot; 458 U. S., at 761. The CPPA, however, is not directed at speech that is obscene; Congress has proscribed those materials through a separate statute. 18 U. S. C. §§ 1460-1466. Like the law in Ferber, the CPPA seeks to reach beyond obscenity, and it makes no attempt to conform to the Miller standard. For instance, the statute would reach visual depictions, such as movies, even if they have redeeming social value. The principal question to be resolved, then, is whether the CPP A is constitutional where it proscribes a significant universe of speech that is neither obscene under Miller nor child pornography under Ferber. Before 1996, Congress defined child pornography as the type of depictions at issue in Ferber, images made using actual minors. 18 U. S. C. § 2252 (1994 ed.). The CPP A retains that prohibition at 18 U. S. C. § 2256(8)(A) and adds three other prohibited categories of speech, of which the first, § 2256(8)(B), and the third, § 2256(8)(D), are at issue in this case. Section 2256(8)(B) prohibits &quot;any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture,&quot; that &quot;is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.&quot; The prohibition on &quot;any visual depiction&quot; does not depend at all on how the image is produced. The section captures a range of depictions, sometimes called &quot;virtual child pornography,&quot; which include computer-generated images, as well as images produced by more traditional means. For instance, the literal terms of the statute embrace a Renaissance painting depicting a scene from classical mythology, a &quot;picture&quot; that &quot;appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.&quot; The statute also prohibits Hollywood movies, filmed without any child actors, if a jury believes an actor &quot;appears to be&quot; a minor engaging in &quot;actual or simulated ... sexual intercourse.&quot; § 2256(2). ... Congress may pass valid laws to protect children from abuse, and it has. E. g., 18 U. S. C. §§ 2241,2251. The prospect of crime, however, by itself does not justify laws suppressing protected speech. See Kingsley Int'l Pictures Corp. v. Regents of Univ. of N. Y., 360 U. S. 684, 689 (1959) (&quot;Among free men, the deterrents ordinarily to be applied to prevent crime are education and punishment for violations of the law, not abridgment of the rights of free speech&quot; (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). It is also well established that speech may not be prohibited because it concerns subjects offending our sensibilities. See FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U. S. 726, 745 (1978) (&quot;[T]he fact that society may find speech offensive is not a sufficient reason for suppressing it&quot;); see also Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 874 (1997) (&quot;In evaluating the free speech rights of adults, we have made it perfectly clear that '[s]exual expression which is indecent but not obscene is protected by the First Amendment''') (quoting Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U. S. 115, 126 (1989)); The Ashcroft decision held that &quot;virtual child porn&quot; which affected no actual child could not be treated in the same way as actual child porn, and could not be banned if not obscene under Miller. It did not deal with purely private possession. Conclusion In short, the statements in Ashcroft, Miller, and Roth that obscene content is not protected by the US First Amendment do not deal with laws prohibiting purely private possession of such content, with no intent to distribute or sell the content. Thus they are not inconsistent.
Of course it is protected by the first amendment. Everyone in the US is protected by the first amendment. It's possible that some statements published on the site might fall afoul of any of the well established exceptions to first amendment protection, but in general the site is protected.
Short Answer &quot;An obstruction conviction cannot stand when it is based on speech protected by an individual’s first amendment right to criticize on-duty police officers&quot; Source: Amicus Brief to Supreme Court of the State of Washington in State of Washington v. E.J.J. I agree with @DaleM's answer. And I want to add to it by picking up on a nuance of the question I don't think DaleM's answer addresses specifically. This question might be about obstruction, not slander. Although the OP specifically mentions slander in their question, I think the context suggests the question actually concerns something different. Like perhaps, obstruction. For example, The question title specifically says, &quot;curse [at]... an officer...&quot; and the OP characterizes their behavior as follows: &quot;I belittle them...&quot; &quot;...and make them really think about what they're doing&quot; &quot;...what if I really embarrass an officer with something I say...&quot; My read of the question suggests (to me) the OP is describing &quot;name-calling&quot; or &quot;insulting&quot; the police by saying things like: &quot;You're an X.&quot; (where X is an insulting term or label) A case involving facts similar to what the OP describes has recently been tried, appealed and resolved by a state supreme court. State supreme court ruled in favor of First Amendment protection. The Washington state supreme court ruled as recently as June 25, 2015 on a case that dealt with this issue. [The Seattle Times reports here][3] that the [Washington State Supreme Court has ruled in the case of State of Washington v. E.J.J.][2]: &quot;First Amendment protects profanity against police&quot; A teenage boy convicted of obstruction after yelling and cursing at three Seattle police officers while they were investigating a disturbance at his house had a First Amendment right to behave the way he did, the Washington Supreme Court said in an opinion Thursday. Citizens who curse at police and call them abusive names while they’re investigating a crime are protected from arrest by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a case out of Seattle.
Section 381.00316 is unconstitutional because it is an unjustifiable content-based restriction on speech, in violation of the First Amendment. The law is unconstitutional because private businesses and their owners have a First Amendment right to demand that their customers engage in speech as a condition of doing business. If you've watched Showtime at the Apollo or America's Got Talent, you understand the concept that a business owner can make decisions -- objectively or subjectively -- about what kinds of speech they want to host. If you want to make it through your performance, it's incumbent on you to satisfy the predilections of the business owner. And this doesn't just apply to TV. If you went to a poetry slam at your local coffee shop, the owners could boot you if talked through the performances, making it difficult for other customers to enjoy the show. Likewise, they could boot you if you went to the mic and started spouting racist nonsense, or if you just stood at the mic and said nothing at all. In the Florida case, Norwegian is doing the same thing -- just not for artistic reasons. Beyond requiring customers to pay for a ticket, it is requiring its customers to communicate the message that they are vaccinated, and they are requiring them to communicate using written documentation. In other words, Norwegian is demanding that customers engage in speech (&quot;I am vaccinated&quot;) in a certain way (written proof of vaccination), and that kind of exchange falls within the protections of the First Amendment. That speech is subject to regulation because of its vaccination-related content of that speech, making Section 381.00316 a content-based restriction on speech, which subjects it to strict scrutiny, meaning that the state cannot enforce the law unless it furthers a compelling governmental interest and is narrowly tailored to advance that interest. The state argued that the law furthered compelling governmental interests in protecting medical privacy and preventing discrimination, but the court wasn't buying it: Here, Defendant has presented no evidence to demonstrate that his asserted interests are in response to real problems that Florida residents are actually facing. There is no evidentiary support to show that residents have experienced intrusions on their medical privacy or discrimination because some businesses, including cruise lines, have required COVID-19 vaccination documentation. The legislative record cited by Defendant is bereft of any facts or data underpinning the Statute’s purported purpose. In light of the absence of any appropriate data, reports, or even anecdotal evidence on this issue, the Court cannot conclude that Defendant’s articulated interests are based on a problem that exists in fact. And even if these were compelling interests, the state failed to prove that the law was actually advancing them. Because the law outlawed the exchange of written communication rather than outlawing the vaccination requirements themselves, businesses remained free to demand information about vaccination status (through oral statements, for instance), and to discriminate against who they knew or believed to be unvaccinated. (N.B.: For procedural reasons, they court actually applied intermediate scrutiny, but the law ends up invalid for basically the same reasons.) Section 381.00316 is unconstitutional because it substantially burdens interstate commerce in violation of the Dormant Commerce Clause. The law was also struck down because it intrudes on the federal government's authority to regulate interstate (and international) commerce. When a law is challenged under the Dormant Commerce Clause, courts ask two questions: (1) Does the state law favor in-state economic interests; and (2) Does the state law's burden on interstate commerce outweigh the legitimate local benefits to the state? A &quot;yes&quot; answer to either will invalidate the law. Here, the court held that the law did not directly favor in-state economic interests, but that the burdens on commerce outweighed the local benefits. Because the law did not meaningfully advance any of the local interests it had invoked (as discussed above), but it did impose a substantial burden on interstate commerce because Norwegian's ships travel to additional ports where proof of vaccination is required: Section 381.00316 will prevent NCLH and other cruise lines from possessing verified information necessary to effectively and efficiently process landing and disembarking at various, preferred domestic and international ports where documentary proof of vaccination is required. This affects not only opportunities for vacation activities like sightseeing, but also responses to mechanical and medical emergencies, or even geopolitical crises. Depriving cruise lines of corroboration of passengers’ vaccination status impedes their ability to prepare and address these eventualities. Either the First Amendment violation or the Commerce Clause violation would have been independently enough to invalidate the statute. Norwegian also argued that the statute was preempted by the CDC's Conditional Sailing Order and related orders, but the court declined to address that argument.
The US flag is not protected by copyright. Nothing as old as the flag is protected by copyright under US law. Indeed no work published in the US prior to 1925 is now protected, except for works of non-US origin protected under the Uruguay Round Agreement Act (URAA) 4 USC sec 8 purports to PRESCRIBE the treatment of the flag, and paragraph (g) says: (g) The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature. However, as this Wikipedia article points out, 4 USC 8 and related sections are advisory, not binding, and no penalty is provided for violating them. 4 USC 3 provides a $100 fine: or 30 days jail time for: Any person who, within the District of Columbia, in any manner, for exhibition or display, shall place or cause to be placed any word, figure, mark, picture, design, drawing, or any advertisement of any nature upon any flag, standard, colors, or ensign of the United States of America; or shall expose or cause to be exposed to public view any such flag, standard, colors, or ensign upon which shall have been printed, painted, or otherwise placed, or to which shall be attached, appended, affixed, or annexed any word, figure, mark, picture, design, or drawing, or any advertisement of any nature; or who, within the District of Columbia, shall manufacture, sell, expose for sale, or to public view, or give away or have in possession for sale, or to be given away or for use for any purpose, any article or substance being an article of merchandise, or a receptacle for merchandise or article or thing for carrying or transporting merchandise, upon which shall have been printed, painted, attached, or otherwise placed a representation of any such flag, standard, colors, or ensign, to advertise, call attention to, decorate, mark, or distinguish the article or substance on which so placed shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $100 or by imprisonment for not more than thirty days, or both, in the discretion of the court. The words “flag, standard, colors, or ensign”, as used herein, shall include any flag, standard, colors, ensign, or any picture or representation of either, or of any part or parts of either, made of any substance or represented on any substance, of any size evidently purporting to be either of said flag, standard, colors, or ensign of the United States of America or a picture or a representation of either, upon which shall be shown the colors, the stars and the stripes, in any number of either thereof, or of any part or parts of either, by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag, colors, standard, or ensign of the United States of America. 18 USC 700 was a criminal statute punishing anyone who: mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any flag of the United States But 18 USC 700 was struck down by the US Supreme Court as a violation of the First Amendment in United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990) Se also the full text of the decision. The decision said, in relevant part: The Government concedes in these cases, as it must, that appellees' flag burning constituted expressive conduct, Brief for United States 28; see Johnson, 491 U.S., at 405-406, 109 S.Ct., at 2540, but invites us to reconsider our rejection in Johnson of the claim that flag burning as a mode of expression, like obscenity or &quot;fighting words,&quot; does not enjoy the full protection of the First Amendment. Cf. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572, 62 S.Ct. 766, 769, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942). This we decline to do.4 ... Although the Flag Protection Act contains no explicit content-based limitation on the scope of prohibited conduct, it is nevertheless clear that the Government's asserted interest is &quot;related 'to the suppression of free expression,' &quot; 491 U.S., at 410, 109 S.Ct., at 2543, and concerned with the content of such expression. The Government's interest in protecting the &quot;physical integ rity&quot; of a privately owned flag5 rests upon a perceived need to preserve the flag's status as a symbol of our Nation and certain national ideals. But the mere destruction or disfigurement of a particular physical manifestation of the symbol, without more, does not diminish or otherwise affect the symbol itself in any way. ... As we explained in Johnson, supra, at 416-417, 109 S.Ct., at 2546: &quot;[I]f we were to hold that a State may forbid flag burning wherever it is likely to endanger the flag's symbolic role, but allow it wherever burning a flag promotes that role—as where, for example, a person ceremoniously burns a dirty flag—we would be . . . permitting a State to 'prescribe what shall be orthodox' by saying that one may burn the flag to convey one's attitude toward it and its referents only if one does not endanger the flag's representation of nationhood and national unity.&quot; Although Congress cast the Flag Protection Act of 1989 in somewhat broader terms than the Texas statute at issue in Johnson, the Act still suffers from the same fundamental flaw: It suppresses expression out of concern for its likely communicative impact. The above quotes without acknowledgement West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943) where the majority opinion includes the often-quoted passage: If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. Any legal device to prohibit modified versions of US flags, particularly when these are in fact being used to make or symbolize political arguments or positions, would fall under the same rule, and would be equally unconstitutional.
SCOTUS suggests in Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, that a subject's confession was constitutionally inadmissible if it was adduced by police questioning during a period when petitioner's will was overborne by a drug having the properties of a &quot;truth serum.&quot; In Miranda v. Arizona, it is held that If the interrogation continues without the presence of an attorney and a statement is taken, a heavy burden rests on the government to demonstrate that the defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to retained or appointed counsel. Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478, 490, n. 14. This Court has always set high standards of proof for the waiver of constitutional rights, Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938), and we reassert these standards as applied to in-custody interrogation. Subsequently in Colorado v. Connelly, defendant suffered from psychosis that &quot;interfered with his ability to make free and rational choices and, although not preventing him from understanding his rights, motivated his confession.&quot; The court found that Coercive police activity is a necessary predicate to finding that a confession is not &quot;voluntary&quot; within the meaning of the Due Process Clause. Here, the taking of respondent's statements and their admission into evidence constituted no violation of that Clause. While a defendant's mental condition may be a &quot;significant&quot; factor in the &quot;voluntariness&quot; calculus, this does not justify a conclusion that his mental condition, by itself and apart from its relation to official coercion, should ever dispose of the inquiry into constitutional &quot;voluntariness.&quot; In the Massachusetts case Commonwealth v. Hilton, 443 Mass. 597, the Mass. Supreme Court (in the first ruling) said that We see no error in the judge's finding that the defendant's mental infirmities were such that she did not understand the Miranda warnings, and we therefore conclude that statements made after the interrogation did become custodial were properly suppressed. On remand and after in a second appear, in Commonwealth v. Hilton, 823 N.E.2d 383, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that a finding that the defendant was unable to make a knowing, voluntary, and intelligent waiver of her Miranda rights is not enough, standing alone, to support the finding that her statements were involuntary. The court found that the defendant was competent to stand trial contrary to the trial judge's determination, and said that because we are unable to determine if the judge would have allowed the supplemental motion to suppress without the erroneous findings, we vacate the order for suppression and remand for further consideration. The point here is that being mentally disabled is not per se proof that a confession is involuntary. Turning specifically to intoxication, in Colorado v. Jewell, the trial court suppressed a confession while intoxicated &quot;based on its finding that Jewell was too intoxicated to knowingly and intelligently waive his right to remain silent.&quot; The Colorado Supreme Court reversed the suppression [b]ecause the facts do not support the trial court's determination that Jewell's intoxication was so severe that he was demonstrably unable to knowingly and intelligently waive his Miranda rights which leaves open the possibility that there is some such degree of intoxication. The court determined that Intoxication only invalidates an otherwise valid Miranda waiver if the court finds through a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant was incapable of understanding the nature of his rights and the ramifications of waiving them. Subsequent discussion partially fleshes out how one might determine whether a waiver is unknowing or unintelligent. Citing Colorado v. Kaiser, the court suggested considering whether “the defendant seemed oriented to his or her surroundings and situation; whether the defendant's answers were responsive and appeared to be the product of a rational thought process; whether the defendant was able to appreciate the seriousness of his or her predicament, including the possibility of being incarcerated; whether the defendant had the foresight to attempt to deceive the police in hopes of avoiding prosecution; whether the defendant expressed remorse for his or her actions; and whether the defendant expressly stated that he or she understood their rights.” One issue was raised regarding &quot;cases where, as here, the intoxication is self-induced.&quot; A fundamental result of the mass of Miranda case law is that coercive actions by police invalidate a confession. Getting a suspect drunk(er) would be a clear case of a coercive police action, and presumably would be inadmissible under Townsend v. Sain.
In the united-states, those actions would be fully protected by the First Amendment. Andy has a constitutional right to speak freely about essentially whatever he wants -- including Mary's criminal conduct -- unless his speech falls into one of several narrowly defined categories, none of which would apply in this case. And because Mary has already put this information out on the Internet, it is likely not sufficiently private to support an invasion-of-privacy claim. However, the unfortunate reality is that complainants, police, prosecutors, and judges frequently ignore First Amendment protections. Indeed, many states have laws against &quot;cyberstalking&quot; and &quot;telecommunications harassment&quot; that are incredibly broad, and that clearly apply to conduct protected by the First Amendment. For instance, Ohio's telecommunications harassment statute makes it a crime to send an e-mail &quot;with purpose to abuse, threaten, or harass another person.&quot; This means that many people who engage in First Amendment-protected speech end up getting prosecuted anyway. If they pay for a good lawyer who knows how to properly raise a First Amendment defense, they may escape any penalties. But because most defendants do not have those resources, and because many lawyers are unaware of the First Amendment implications of such prosecutions, most defendants in such situations likely end up being convicted despite behaving perfectly legally. In the united-kingdom, though, the situation is very different. Even if Mary is breaking the law, and even if Andy limits himself to strictly factual information about what's he's learned about her conduct, he may still be held civilly liable. Mary may also be able to pursue Andy criminally for harassment if his e-mail causes her substantial emotional distress, and civilly for &quot;harassment by publication.&quot; The fact that this information is already public is likely not going to go very far in changing the analysis. Andy's best course of action is therefore to play it safe by keeping his mouth shut. Doing so has both legal and nonlegal benefits: He avoids exposure to the hassles of defending himself from criminal charges and he gets some time to examine the resentment, jealousy, paranoia that makes him want to humiliate his &quot;friend.&quot;
In general this is protected by the first amendment. It is not in general a problem describing how one can one can do something illegal. But there are special cases to be careful with. You might want to do some research into the limits on free speech. It would be hard to provide an answer that fully covers all your different cases and you would need to be more specific about what illegal activity you want to describe. In describing how to do something illegal, you might accidentally share information that you are not allowed to share. When you post things online, this can be considered as publishing or exporting. Therefore certain export restrictions might apply. Also, It is illegal to publish bomb making manuals, with the knowledge or intent that this information be used to commit a federal crime of violence. See https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/842. There are restrictions on publishing material relating to cryptography without having an export license. Granted, this isn't necessarily related to publishing things that are illegal, but just to give an idea about how publishing/exporting knowledge can causes problems. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) sets restrictions on what you can publish about arms. What you publish can't be “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action.” See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio. One might imagine that you could get into trouble if someone interprets what you do as inciting or producing a lawless action. It might sound obvious, but you want to make sure that you have the right to share the information that you have. The information that you are providing might be copyrighted in some way.