It is axiomatic that whether speech is protected turns on whether it poses a serious risk of harm—in Holmes’s formulation, a “clear and present danger.” If this is correct, then the state of mind, or intent, of the speaker should be irrelevant. Yet First Amendment law makes speaker’s intent a factor in the protection of many different kinds of speech. This...
18 U.S.C. §641 prohibits the theft or misuse of federal government “things of value.” The federal government has used this statute to prosecute leakers of information: The government considers disclosure to be a type of theft or conversion, and government-produced or government-held information to be government property. The circuits disagree about whether § 641...
The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) requires that prisoners exhaust available administrative remedies before filing a federal action challenging prison conditions. Thus, an inmate can only file a lawsuit in federal court after proceeding through each step of the prison’s grievance procedure and meeting all procedural requirements. This exhaustion process is complicated...