Less than one week to Packingham

It is now less than one week until the Supreme Court of the United States hears oral arguments in Packingham v. North Carolina. A case that will have significant impact on individual’s First Amendment rights.

At issue in the case is; whether, under the court’s First Amendment precedents, a law that makes it a felony for any person on the state’s registry of former sex offenders to “access” a wide array of websites – including Facebook, YouTube, and nytimes.com – that enable communication, expression, and the exchange of information among their users, if the site is “know[n]” to allow minors to have accounts, is permissible, both on its face and as applied to petitioner, who was convicted based on a Facebook post in which he celebrated dismissal of a traffic ticket, declaring “God is Good!”

Oral arguments are scheduled to be heard next week, February 27, 2017.

For more on the significance of this case, listen to the following broadcast from WNYC.