Path: utzoo!telecom-request
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 91 06:00:55 EDT
From: Scott Horne <horne-scott@cs.yale.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Telephone Advertising Consumer Rights Act
Message-ID: <telecom11.454.6@eecs.nwu.edu>
Organization: Computer "Science" Dept, Yale University
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In article <telecom11.426.7@eecs.nwu.edu>, linc@tongue1.berkeley.edu
writes:

> [No, I'm not a lawyer, but...]  There's an interesting point of
> Constitutional law involved.  It turns out that if you have a "NO
> SOLICITING" sign on the front of your house, it is entirely legal for
> someone to come to your door anyway and solicit you for POLITICAL
> purposes, because the First Amendment right of the solicitor to
> engage <in political speech outweighs the right of the would-not-be
> solicitee <to discourage it.

I'm not a lawyer, either, but I think you've been misinformed.  First,
the First Amendment doesn't give anyone else the right to speak about
anything on your property.  Second, the First Amendment (_q.v._)
doesn't differentiate between political speech and other speech,
anyway; hence, either "NO SOLICITING" signs apply to all solicitations
or they apply to none.  Third, "the First Amendment right of the
solicitor to engage in political speech" guarantees only that the
government can't prevent political speech; it says nothing about the
rights of others to keep you from annoying them on their property.


Scott Horne                               ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne
horne@cs.Yale.edu      SnailMail:  Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT   06520
203 624-9263               Summer residence:  25 High St, Apt 32, New Haven, CT