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M$4 Answers
In essence, the Amendment says Congress will not tell you that you can't say anything. You can say anything you want. But there may be consequences of what you say. The Constitution never says there won'[t be consequences.
Your question is rather poorly worded, but I got from your responses to others that what you meant was, "How can there be laws against libel if we are protected by the First Amendment?"
Journalistic scholars agree that the provision of the First Amendment prohibiting laws that abridge the freedom of the press are specifically addressing the issue of prior censorship. Just like the issue of freedom of speech, the press may publish whatever it wants without fear that Congress is going to prevent that publication from taking place. However, once you choose to publish something, you must deal with the conserquences of what you publish.
If you print malicious lies that you knew to be false and damage a person's reputation in the eyes of a significant minority of their peers, you will have to face the consequences. Like all other laws, it is a guideline that offers a person a choice. If you do this, then these are the consequences. If you kill a person, you may face a lifetime in prison. If you libel someone, you may lose lots and lots of money.
Way too many journalism law and ethics courses
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M$While the 1st Amendment doesn't justify libel, it does offer some protections which make libel harder to prosecute than in other jurisdictions (particularly when compared to European defamation law). Until 1964, the first amendment had no bearing on libel law, as the Supreme Court of the United States had never ruled on it, in part because the Sedition Act of 1798 expired in 1801, before it could be challenged. That changed when the Supreme Court ruled on New York Times Co. vs. Sullivan, which codified 1st Amendment considerations and raised the burden of proof for Libel, particularly with respect to public officials. In addition to generally erring on the side of protecting speech with regard to public officials, this case also codified the need to prove malicious intent as part of the burden of proof in libel cases.
DISCLAIMER: I'm neither a lawyer, nor a professional constitutional scholar. If you have specific legal questions, you should consult an attorney for legal advice.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=376&i...
http://www.expertlaw.com/library/personal_injury/defamation.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law
http://www.constitution.org/rf/sedition_1798.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts
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M$
Yes Albanian. The roadrunner concurs.
@cherman, freedom of speech simply does not mean that you can say anything. From the classic you can't shout "fire" in a theater to not conspiring to commit a crime to shouting vulgarity in the street, there are lots of things that you cannot say without breaking the law. In the context of the constitution the words mainly refer to expressing political opinions; but, to understand it better read the opinions of the Supreme Court cited by @willrusk.
But what about the fact that the 1st ammendment directly contradicts libel?
It is the Supreme Court that determines the constitutionality of a law. The existence of the case law that I mentioned above (New York Times Co. vs. Sullivan) is evidence that libel law is not directly contradicted by the 1st amendment. If it were, the ruling would have thrown out libel law completely, but that was not the Supreme Court's ruling. The Supreme Court ruling was that the 1st amendment provides protections resulting in an increased burden of proof, including a need to prove maliciousness and an increased burden of proof for public officials.
It isn't so much a matter of libel being justified under the First Amendment, but more a matter of it being very difficult to prove libel in court in the United States -- thanks to several court cases, the US has some of the strongest media protections in the world.
In the vast majority of libel cases, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff, who has to prove six things just to have a case:
- The statement has to be actually defamatory. There are a lot of things that don't count. For instance, if something isn't considered to be a fact, it isn't considered to be libel.
- The person has to be identified. Rather self-explanatory.
- It has to be a published statement -- in other words, three or more people need to have seen it.
- The media has to be at fault. This is probably the hardest one to prove -- more on this later.
- The statement has to be false. Also kind of obvious -- if a statement is true, it isn't libel.
- The statement has to have caused the plaintiff demonstrable harm.
The big libel case is New York Times Co. vs. Sullivan, which did a lot of things -- basically, it allowed the First Amendment to affect libel decisions in the first place. It's also the reason why it's so hard to prove fault.
The case invented the whole idea of actual malice: that the media outlet had knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for truth. The decision only applied this to public officials, but later cases extended this protection to public figures (household name celebrity types) and limited public figures (anyone who's voluntarily entered a public controversy and tried to change the outcome.) This covers a LOT of people, and again, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff to prove actual malice.
So you can start to see why it's so hard to win a libel suit in the United States. There are a lot more exceptions and points I didn't cover here -- these are just the basics.
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M$
Analogously, the second amendment gives you the right to bear arms, it does make it legal for you to use your arms to shoot people.
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M$
They can't write a law to fine everyone who complains about the government. We used to have them, though -- a couple of Sedition Acts -- but another thing that New York Times v. Sullivan did was make it effectively impossible to punish someone for criticizing the government. (Political speech is generally given more protection anyway.)