Military Expression - Limitations On Military Expression

Limitations On Military Expression

While the civilian population of the United States is afforded the right to free expression under the First Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed the notion that service members have a reduced level of free speech. While the Court acknowledged that service members do have First Amendment rights, these rights are limited:

They do, in fact, have the same first amendment rights as their civilian brothers. They are, however, not absolute...The difference is that the military has peculiar needs and interests apart from those of the civilian community it serves, and they preclude the exercise of the right of free speech on as broad a basis as is the practice in the civilian community. No officer or man in the armed forces has a right, be it constitutional, statutory or otherwise, to publish any information (or make any statement) which will imperil his unit or its cause.

This justification offered new precedent to the military expression limitations and differs from those stated in the Articles of War in 1775 where Congress feared a military coup. In fact, the Uniformed Code of Military Justice UCMJ specifically includes criminal charges against a service member for various UCMJ offenses that have been levied for verbal and written statements or public displays of political speech.