LogFAQs > #932151067

Guns_of_Verdun posted...

Morally? Yes

Legally? No you can't make that law. That's a 1st amendment violation

There are lots of times when it's illegal to lie. Among them:

• impersonating a federal agent (18 USC 912)
• lying to a federal agent (18 USC 1001);
• health care fraud (18 USC 1035 and 1347);
• mail fraud (18 USC 1341);
• wire fraud (18 USC 1343);
• perjury (18 USC 1623);
• False Claims Act (31 USC 3729-33);
• and libel and slander (common law).

But you're right that these laws are all at least theoretically in conflict with the First Amendment rule that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." So why are some of them upheld against a First Amendment challenge while others are struck down?
The Supreme Court explained its rationale a few years ago in U.S. v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709 (2012). That case dealt with a federal statute making it illegal to falsely claim that you had won any medal that Congress had authorized to be awarded to the armed forces. The federal government said that false speech had no value and therefore was not protected, pointing to cases upholding laws like the ones listed above where the Court had used similar descriptions.
But the Court rejected that argument, noting that the cases where it has upheld laws limiting false speech dealt with "defamation, fraud, or some other legally cognizable harm associated with a false statement":

In those decisions the falsity of the speech at issue was not irrelevant to our analysis, but neither was it determinative. The Court has never endorsed the categorical rule the Government advances: that false statements receive no First Amendment protection. Our prior decisions have not confronted a measure, like the Stolen Valor Act, that targets falsity and nothing more.
Even when considering some instances of defamation and fraud, moreover, the Court has been careful to instruct that falsity alone may not suffice to bring the speech outside the First Amendment. The statement must be a knowing or reckless falsehood.

So that sort of gives you an organizing principle. It's not really a philosophical distinction, and meeting it doesn't mean that the lie is illegal, just that it may be outlawed.
tl;dr: The First Amendment usually does not protect lies when they are:

• made knowingly; and
• made with some corrupt purpose.

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After I said a transgender person should reveal they are trans before a DATE: A Mod/Admin said on 12/15/2019 5:43:47 PM:
Keep your transphobia off the boards.