In the First Amendment, it is stated that:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

These aforementioned statements ratified by our forefathers are commonly referred to as the freedom of expression. The freedom of expression is not only limited to speech; it refers to all forms of exchanging ideas: religion, press, assembly, petition, etc. In Alan M. Dershowitz's essay, "Shouting Fire!", he boldly claims that Justice Holmes' analogy of "shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theater" to circulating pamphlets to the public during wartime that contain political ideas against the draft is both "self-deceptive or self-serving" (Dershowitz, 328). However, shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater does not only refer to the freedom of speech, but to freedom of expression implied by the First Amendment. By shouting "Fire!", an individual is implying alarm, and the indication of alarm will ultmately cause chaos. There is no way that a

The ideas embedded within the First Amendment are left open for interpretation by its audience due to the ever changing nature of society. It is then the different interpretations of the First Amendment that causes disagreement among individuals in justifying their case. In the case of Schenck v. United States, however, Justice Holmes' analogy of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater to the distribution of the political pamphlets was a poor interpretation of the ideas behind the First Amendment. Although "not a single recipient of the Schenck pamphlet is known to have changed his mind after reading it" (Dershowitz, 326), Schenck was convicted because "the pamphlet created a clear and present danger of hindering the war effort" (Dershowitz, 325). In no way does the scenario of the Schenck pamphlet echo that of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater, for it does not directly lead to unnecessary chaos and panic. Inherent in the reading of the pamphlets involves "a sophisticated ability to think conceptually, deductively and sequentially; a high valuation of reason and order; an abhorrence of contradiction; a large capacity for detachment and objectivity; and a tolerance for delayed response" (Postman, 63). If indeed the Schenck pamphlets should be analogized to shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater, then should the writers of the National Inquirer, Saturday Night Live, David Letterman, etc. also be convicted for misinformation and falsely portraying public figures? Fortunately, we are now able to realize the lunacy of Justice Holmes' "Fire!" analogy and reassess the ideas behind the First Amendment.

Let us interpret "speech" according to the definition given by Webster's New World Dictionary, then "speech" should only constitute audible sound and not also the ideas that may result from the act of speaking. According to this theory, we are then allowed to freely say anything that please us, including the act of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. However, we can clearly see that this is not the intention of the First Amendment from historical evidence. It does not seem that the Supreme Court and the public view only the act of "speaking" to be protected by the First Amendment, for it is the act of expressing ideas that concerns them. Even Justice Holmes announced that "[t]he most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater, and causing a panic. It

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Approximate Word count = 1639
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)