First Amendment

Background
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that:
 * “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This language restricts government both more and less than it would if it were applied literally. It restricts government more in that it applies not only to Congress, but to all branches of the federal government, and to all branches of state and local government. It restricts government less in that it provides no protection to some types of speech and only limited protection to others.

Gambling
Gambling implicates First Amendment free speech concerns on two levels. Gambling is communicative by nature. Gambling also relies on advertising and a wide range of auxiliary communication services.

Historically, gambling itself has been considered a vice and consequently beyond the protection of the First Amendment. There is every reason to believe that illegal gambling remains beyond the shield of the First Aendment. Gone, however, is the notion that the power to outlaw a vice includes the power to outlaw auxiliary speech when the underlying vice remains unregulated. The U.S. Supreme Court made this readily apparent when it approved an advertising ban on gambling illegal at the point of broadcast, but invalidated an advertising ban on gambling lawful at the point of broadcast.

Although the Court’s decisions acknowledges the ambivalence of American gambling policies, they do not appear to threaten the basic premise that the First Amendment permits Congress to outlaw gambling in any form (including Internet gambling) and to ban any speech incidental to illegal gambling.

Privacy
First Amendment principles also bear on privacy, both in the sense of protecting it, but more often in terms of overriding privacy protection in the interests of protecting speech and press.