Question

Five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court chose to hear a case in which a man was arrested by the Secret Service in 2006 for going up to then-Vice President Cheney and telling him that he was wrong about his decision to go into Iraq. The man sued the Secret Service for arresting him, saying that the First Amendment protects his right to criticize the government. The Court decided whether he had a First Amendment right to sue. In another case last year, a woman sued Wal-Mart for firing her for protesting the Iraq policies of then-President Bush. However, in that case, no court would hear the case (it was dismissed by all courts in which it was filed), and the woman did not get her job back. By so doing, those courts effectively upheld Wal-Mart’s right to fire the woman. Why would a federal court (i.e., the Supreme Court) elect to hear the Cheney case but no federal court would hear the Wal-Mart case?

• A. The Cheney case arguments were better made than the Wal-Mart case, otherwise, the Wal-Mart case would have been heard by the courts.

• B. The First Amendment only protects speech when that speech is threatened by the government, not when it’s threatened by private individuals or corporations.

• C. Cases that involve government officials get precedence over cases that involve private businesses.

• D. The Wal-Mart case looked to the courts more like a dispute between the woman and her employers than a First Amendment case. But, in principle, the courts would have heard the case otherwise.

Answer 1

Option B

The First Amendment only protects your speech from government censorship. It applies to federal, state, and local government actors. This is a broad category that includes not only lawmakers and elected officials, but also public schools and universities, courts, and police officers. It does not include private citizens, businesses, and organizations. This means that:

A private school can suspend students for criticizing a school policy
A private business can fire an employee for expressing political views on the job; and
A private media company can refuse to publish or broadcast opinions it disagrees with.

In the light of above discussion the man sued Secret Service which is a US federal law enforcement agency. The rights of man were threatened by Secret Service and the court considered his case due to applicability of First Amendment. But in case of Walmart the issue relates to dispute between private organization and employee, so First Amendment is not applicable.First Amendment does not include private citizens, organizations and businesses.