Case Study: F. E. C. V. Citizens United

The Citizen’s Freedom of Speech The Citizens United v F.E.C., 2010, case was when the Citizens United, a nonprofit organization that was funded primarily by individual donations released a damaging film about Senator Hillary Clinton and wanted to get it to a wider audience. They did this by paying a cable company to make it available through their “On-Demand” service and purchased advertising time to make it free for cable subscribers to view. However, since the film did include Hillary’s name and the showing of the film to a broader audience would have fallen in the BCRA’ s key provision which was a ban on speech that was regarded as “ electioneering communications” and named a federal candidate within 30 days of a primary election paid out of special interests. The Citizens United were worried that they would be sued for violating the law, so they filed a claim that said law didn’t work for their specific circumstances, and the court agreed, so they were fine. The court ruled correctly in favor of the Citizens United because money, corporations, and freedom of expression are all important aspects that knowledge freedom of speech. …show more content…
As well as the money that can be spent by people who wanted to talk about candidates. However, in the ruling of Buckley it states that, “A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign .. reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached.” And in order to get ideas and speeches out there effectively, “in today’s mass society requires the expenditure of