free speech has become a weapon of the powerful says new york times creditjim wilsonthe new york timesjune 30 2018washington on the final day of the supreme court term last week justice elena kagan sounded an alarmthe courts five conservative members citing the first amendment had just dealt public unions a devastating blow the day before the same majority had used the first amendment to reject a california law requiring religiously oriented crisis pregnancy centers to provide women with information about abortionconservatives said justice kagan who is part of the courts fourmember liberal wing were weaponizing the first amendmentthe two decisions were the latest in a stunning run of victories for a conservative agenda that has increasingly been built on the foundation of free speech conservative groups borrowing and building on arguments developed by liberals have used the first amendment to justify unlimited campaign spending discrimination against gay couples and attacks on the regulation of tobacco pharmaceuticals and gunsthe right which had for years been hostile to and very nervous about a strong first amendment has rediscovered it said burt neuborne a law professor at new york universitythe citizens united campaign finance case for instance was decided on freespeech grounds with the fivejustice conservative majority ruling that the first amendment protects unlimited campaign spending by corporations the government the majority said has no business regulating political speechthe dissenters responded that the first amendment did not require allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace and corrupt democracythe libertarian position has become dominant on the right on first amendment issues said ilya shapiro a lawyer with the cato institute it simply means that we should be skeptical of government attempts to regulate speech that used to be an uncontroversial and nonideological point whats now being called the libertarian position on speech was in the 1960s the liberal position on speechand an increasingly conservative judiciary has been more than a little receptive to this argument a new analysis prepared for the new york times found that the supreme court under chief justice john g roberts jr has been far more likely to embrace freespeech arguments concerning conservative speech than liberal speech that is a sharp break from earlier erasas a result liberals who once championed expansive first amendment rights are now uneasy about themthe left was once not just on board but leading in supporting the broadest first amendment protections said floyd abrams a prominent first amendment lawyer and a supporter of broad freespeech rights now the progressive community is at least skeptical and sometimes distraught at the level of first amendment protection which is being afforded in cases brought by litigants on the rightmany on the left have traded an absolutist commitment to free speech for one sensitive to the harms it can inflicttake pornography and street protests liberals were once largely united in fighting to protect sexually explicit materials from government censorship now many on the left see pornography as an assault on womens rightsin 1977 many liberals supported the