Free Speech Hearing At the Statehouse

Yesterday, the Maine Legislature's Judiciary Committee held a daylong hearing on a new Maine law with potentially terrible consequences for the free flow of information in Maine. The ACLU of MAINE's Public Policy Counsel, Alysia Melnick, joined experts from across the country to testify about all the different problems with the law. As Alysia explained, the law impinges on the First Amendment rights of three different classes of people: young adults, who have the right to seek out information important to them, whether to protect their own health and safety or because of a hobby; adults, who have nearly absolute rights to seek out information on the Internet; and businesses and individuals who create content  on the internet, who have the right to share all kinds of information without undue government interference. Maine Attorney General Janet Mills suggested that, in current form, the law is almost legally and constitutionally indefensible.  Today, the committee will discuss whether to amend the law or to take our advice and completely scrap it.