ABSTRACT
The United States is engaged in what the president refers to as “a war on terrorism,” as we pause from our work as university and journalism school administrators to reflect on freedom of expression, on how we come to understand it as scholars, and on what the work of social research in communication and law may hold for the future. As in other times of military and social conflict, there are implications for the flow and veracity of information, for the ability of the government to hold and interrogate prisoners outside of the public’s view, for the efficacy of public calls to question official policy, for the ways in which journalists may gather information and report it to citizens, and for the privacy of individuals. For much of the last half of the 20th century, there was a fragile consensus about the value of freedom of expression in a democratic society. Nonetheless, although most Americans say they favor our constitutional freedoms of speech, Stanford law professor Kathleen Sullivan (1994) noted that many are willing to roll back or trade those rights to achieve other goals. The freedoms of expression take on particular salience when ideologies clash. There will be no lack of work for the foreseeable future for those interested in the interactions of communication and law.
