{"id":851,"date":"2012-02-23T08:47:45","date_gmt":"2012-02-23T14:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sebersole.wordpress.com\/?p=851"},"modified":"2012-02-23T08:47:45","modified_gmt":"2012-02-23T14:47:45","slug":"stolan-valor-debated-by-the-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/stolan-valor-debated-by-the-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Stolen Valor Debated by the Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A law that got its start at CSU-Pueblo has made its way all the way to the Supreme Court where, this week, justices debated when it becomes a crime to tell a lie. In this case the lie is about being a recipient of\u00a0\u00a0a military medal.<\/p>\n

The Stolen Valor Act of 2005 got its start as a college paper written by Pam Sterner when she was a student at the University of Southern Colorado, now renamed CSU-Pueblo. Pam and her husband Doug are seen in this photo taken in their home in Virginia where they now live. According to the Daily Herald<\/a>,<\/p>\n

Pam Sterner went back to school in her early 40s at Colorado State University in Pueblo, Colo. In a political science course, she wrote a paper that grew out of her husband\u2019s frustrations over phony award claimants whose worst punishment was public embarrassment. That paper eventually led to the Stolen Valor Act.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What is the significance of the Stolen Valor Act for students of the media? The Supreme Court will make its judgement based on whether the law is consistent with the 1st Amendment to the Constitution and its protection of free speech. Opponents of the Stolen Valor Act are concerned that defense of the law could lead to additional restrictions of free speech. The 1st Amendment is the most important legal protection for the media industries because of it protects not only personal speech, but it also protects the press which is broadly understood as media of all kinds. The 1st Amendment protects a broad array of speech, including speech that is mean-spirited, unpatriotic, and worse. [See a previous post<\/a>\u00a0on this blog which examined the protection of protests at military funerals.]<\/p>\n

Lying about one’s exploits is not new nor unique to claims of military honors. As one person said in response to the debate over false claims of heroism, “there are only a six hundred Navy Seals in total. But in bars around the country, on any given Friday night, there are three times that number.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A law that got its start at CSU-Pueblo has made its way all the way to the Supreme Court where, this week, justices debated when it becomes a crime to tell a lie. In this case the lie is about being a recipient of\u00a0\u00a0a military medal. The Stolen Valor Act of 2005 got its start … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Stolen Valor Debated by the Supreme Court”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1st-amendment","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}