JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL v. AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, et al.

Whether a municipal sign code that restricts posting based on purpose is either content-based or content-neutral and, if content-based, whether the code survives strict scrutiny.

Do Vermonts mandatory limits on candidate expenditures violate the First Amendment as interpreted in Buckley v. Valeo (1976)?

Does the PROTECT Act abridge First Amendment freedom of speech by prohibiting offers and requests of materials believed to be child pornography?

Whether the court of appeals properly barred enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act on First Amendment grounds because the statute relies on community standards to identify material that is harmful to minors.

Whether the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) induces public libraries to violate the 1st Amendment, thereby exceeding Congress's power under the Spending Clause by providing that a library that is otherwise eligible for special federal assistance for Internet access in the form of discount rates for educational purposes under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. 254(h), or grants under the Library Services and Technology Act, 20 U.S.C. 9121 et seq., may not receive that assistance unless the library has in place a policy that includes the operation of a technology protection measure on Internet-connected computers that protects against access by all persons to visual depictions that are obscene or child pornography, and that protects against access by minors to visual depictions that are harmful to minors, a condition of the receipt of federal funding.

Whether a city can justify a ban on multiple-use adult businesses by relying on a study that does not examine the harmful, secondary effects of those type of businesses.

Whether two sections of a law banning computer generated images of child pornography or pornography with adult actors appearing like children violates the First Amendment.

A Colorado statue establishes a 100-foot zone around the entrance to any "health care facility." Within this buffer zone, people may not, without consent "knowingly approach another person within 8 feet," for the purpose of passing out literature or engaging in "oral protest, education, or counseling" on a public sidewalk. The question is whether the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of the speaker are abridged by the protection the statute provides for the unwilling listener.

Whether a federal law requiring cable operators to "fully scramble" indecent and sexually explicit programming on adult stations violate the First Amendment.

Whether the city of Erie's ban on public nudity violates the First Amendment or is a valid exercise of the city's power to regulate harmful secondary effects associated with nude-dancing establishments.

Whether a mandatory student activity fee used to facilitate extracurricular student speech at a public university violates the First Amendment.

Whether a law requiring the National Endowment for the Arts to consider "general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public" before awarding grants to artistic projects is impermissibly viewpoint-based and unconstitutionally vague.

Whether the provisions of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that prohibit the transmission of indecent and patently offensive materials to minors over the Internet violate the First Amendment.

Whether the government may constitutionally require cable television system operators to carry local broadcast stations.

Whether a public university can deny funds to a religious student group that it provides to nonreligious student groups.

Whether the court-mandated inclusion of the Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc. (GLIB) in Boston’s 1993 St. Patrick’s Day parade violated the First Amendment rights of the private group, the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council, that the city of Boston authorized to organize the parade.

Whether a local school district that allows its facilities to be used for social and civic purposes may prevent a religious organization from using the facilities to show a movie that presents family issues from a religious perspective.

Whether a city ordinance prohibiting the distribution of commercial flyers from news racks on city-owned property violates the First Amendment.

Whether an ordinance punishing such action that “arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, or gender” violates the First Amendment.

Whether a New York statute that required that an accused or convicted criminal's income from speech describing his crime be deposited in an escrow account for possible distribution to the criminal's victims or other creditors violated the First Amendment.

Whether a state may constitutionally prohibit nude dancing in public places.

Whether the First Amendment prevents a state from imposing a sales tax on only selected segments of the media.

Whether an Ohio statute prohibiting the private possession or viewing of child pornography is overbroad and violates the First Amendment's free speech guarantees.

Whether a Dallas ordinance licensing "sexually oriented businesses" amounted to a prior restraint on protected expression, violating the First Amendment.

Whether a California law banning indecent as well as obscene interstate commercial telephone messages violated the First Amendment's free speech guarantee

Whether a New York City regulation requiring performers in Central Park to use the city's sound amplification system and technicians violates the First Amendment

Whether a Massachusetts child pornography statute prohibiting adults from posing or exhibiting minors "in a state of nudity" was overbroad and violated the First Amendment.

Whether Gregory Lee Johnson's conviction under a Texas law for publicly burning an American flag in protest violates the First Amendment.

Whether the seizure of a bookstore and its contents for selling obscene materials under RICO, with only "probable cause" was a form of prior restraint and violated the First Amendment.

Whether a law outlawing signs within 500 feet of a foreign embassy tending to bring the foreign government into "public odium " or "public disrepute" and gatherings that refuse to disperse violates the First Amendment.

Whether a high school principal’s removal of two articles from the student newspaper about pregnancy and divorce violated the First Amendment rights of the student editors. To what extent, consistent with the First Amendment, may educators exercise editorial control over school-sponsored speech?

Whether determining if a work is obscene requires an objective standard instead of "community standards" to constitutionally judge whether the material has "value."

Whether a state sales tax scheme that taxes general interest magazines, but exempts newspapers and religious, professional, trade, and sports journals, violates the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press

Whether a city ordinance barring nude dancing in establishments licensed to sell liquor violated proprietors' First Amendment rights.

Whether the First Amendment bars enforcement of a statute authorizing closure of a premises found to be used as a place for prostitution and lewdness because the premises are also used as an adult bookstore.

Whether school officials may prohibit a vulgar and lewd student speech at a student assembly even if the speech does not create a substantial disruption.

Whether federal exclusion of legal defense and political advocacy organizations from participation in a charity drive aimed at federal employees violates the First Amendment

Whether an appeals court erred in invalidating in its entirety a Washington statute aimed at preventing and punishing the publication of obscene materials.

Whether a federal law that prohibits a photographic color reproduction of United States currency on the cover of a magazine is unconstitutional either on its face or as applied to a magazine publisher.

Whether the denial of a permit to protestors requesting to camp out in Washington D.C. parks, according to Park Service regulations, violated the protestors' First Amendment rights.

Whether an interschool mail system's grant of mail access to the Perry Education Association but no other union violated the First Amendment's free speech guarantee.

Whether a New York criminal statute that prohibits persons from knowingly promoting sexual performances by children under the age of 16 by distributing material which depicts such performances violates the First Amendment.

Whether a New York statute barring topless dancing in venues licensed to serve liquor violates the First Amendment.

Whether a state, consistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, may confine religious organizations wishing to sell and distribute religious literature at a state fair to an assigned location within the fairgrounds.

Whether a New Jersey ordinance prohibiting all live entertainment, including nonobscene nude dancing, was overbroad and violated rights of free expression guaranteed by the First Amendment

Whether a state statute that bars picketing of residences or dwellings, but exempts from its prohibition "the peaceful picketing of a place of employment involved in a labor dispute" violates the First Amendment because it is not content-neutral.

Whether an order of appellee New York Public Service Commission that prohibits the inclusion by appellant and other public utility companies in monthly bills of inserts discussing controversial issues of public policy directly infringes the freedom of speech protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments and thus is invalid.

Whether a Texas statute authorizing injunctions against exhibition of obscene motions pictures violated the First Amendment's bar on prior restraints because it authorized temporary injunctions of indefinite duration.

Whether a broadcast of patently offensive words dealing with sex and excretion may be regulated because of its content.

Whether court instructions in a case tried under pre-Miller guidelines could properly include children and sensitive persons within the defintion of the community by whose standards obscenity is to be judged.

Whether a conviction for selling sado-masochistic materials under an Illinois obscenity statute violated the First Amendment because the statute was overbroad.

Whether "community standards" of the state of Iowa can be defined by state legislatures so as to be applicable in federal obscenity law.

Whether the standards announced in Miller v. California (1973) are to be applied retroactively to the potential detriment of a defendant in a criminal case.

Whether a zoning ordinance classification based on a difference between motion picture theaters which exhibit sexually explicit "adult" movies and those which do not is unconstitutional because it is based on the content of communication protected by the First Amendment.

Whether the prosecution of a bookseller charged with selling "obscene mailable matter" violated the First Amendment because the trial did not allow him to contest the obscenity of the magazines.

Whether striking union members have a First Amendment free speech right to picket inside a shopping center in order to advertise their strike against the owner of one of the stores.

Whether a Florida ordinance making it a public nuisance and a punishable offense for a drive-in movie theater to exhibit films containing nudity, when the screen is visible from a public street or place, violates the First Amendment guarantee to freedom of speech and expression.

Whether the denial of a city facility for a production of "Hair" because it contained "obscene" conduct constituted a prior restraint and violated the First Amendment.

Did the Georgia law violate the freedom of the press as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments?

Whether a conviction under federal law banning mailing of obscene material failed to meet the "adequate notice" and "community standards" guidelines, among others, laid out in Miller v. California (1973).

Whether the film "Carnal Knowledge" was obscene and hence not entitled to the protection for free expression that is guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Whether the seizure of a sexually explicit film and arrest of the theater's manager after the film was screened, with no prior adversary hearing, violated the First Amendment.

Whether RICO's forfeiture provisions constituted a prior restraint on speech and were overbroad thereby violating the First Amendment.

Whether the proprietor of an adult bookstore's conviction for selling a nonillustrated "obscene" book could be sustained under the First Amendment.

Whether, consistent with the First Amendment, unsolicited mass mailings to advertise books containing explicit pictures of sexual activities can be criminally prosecuted.

Whether a forfeiture of "obscene" movies under the Tariff Act. prohibiting the importation of obscene material, should be dismissed because the movies were for private use and possession only.

Whether a statute punishing knowing transportation of obscene material was overbroad because it failed to distinguish between public and nonpublic transportation, violating the First Amendment.

Whether a university that expelled a student for reprinting an offensive cartoon and a profane article headline in a campus newspaper violated the 1st Amendment.

Does a Chicago city ordinance which bans non-union picketing within 150 feet of a school building violate both the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Whether a Washington drive-in movie operator could be punished for violating obscenity laws because passersby and minors might be exposed to a movie which was obscene only "in the context of its exhibition."

Whether the seizure of 37 photographs by customs agents under a federal law prohibiting importation of obscene material violated the First Amendment.

Whether a federal law barring use of the mail for delivering obscene matter to persons over 21 was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

Whether a federal statute allowing the postmaster general to censor obscene mailings lacked adequate safeguards to avoid inhibiting expression protected under the First Amendment.

Whether a statute under which an individual can require a mailer to stop all future mailings that the person "believes to be erotically arousing or sexually provocative" violates the mailer's rights of free speech and due process.

Whether the First Amendment prohibits criminal sanction for private possession of material deemed legally obscene.

Whether judge issuing warrant to seize allegedly obscene motion pictures acted using the proper constitutional safeguards when issuing such warrant.

Whether a New York statute prohibiting the sale of "magazines which would appeal to the lust of persons under the age of eighteen years" is unconstitutionally vague and violates the First Amendment.

Did the portion of New York Penal Law that made it unlawful to knowingly sell minors nude photos and magazines that contain such photos violate the 1st and 14th Amendments?

Whether the conviction of a New York newsstand clerk for selling two "obscene" paperback books violated First Amendment free speech guarantees.

Whether the conviction under New York law of a book distributor for possessing and publishing "obscene" books of sadism and masochism violated his freedom of speech.

Whether three publications that dealt openly with sexual matter were legally obscene under the Roth v. United States (1957) test and without First Amendment protection.

Whether the book Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, commonly called Fanny Hill, is legally obscene.

Whether the conviction of a manager of a movie theater for "possessing and exhibiting an allegedly obscene film" violated the free speech guarantee of the First Amendment.

Whether a state commission with broad discretion to define obscenity, and that allowed police enforcement of obscenity laws, was constitutional under the First Amendment.

Whether an injunction against the mailing of several "obscene" magazines featuring photos of nude male models violated the First Amendment.

Whether a Los Angeles city ordinance punishing the sales of books later determined to be obscene even if the bookseller did not know the contents of the book violated due process and free speech guarantees.

Whether a New York law denying licenses to show movies which "alluringly portrays adultery as proper behavior" is viewpont discrimination and violates the First Amendment.

Whether an injunction on sale of obscene booklets and destruction of such booklets amounted to prior restraint by the State, violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

"The dispositive question is whether obscenity is utterance within the area of protected speech and press."

Whether a Michigan statute punishing sales of books "tending to the corruption of the morals of youth" is so vague as to violate the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause.

Whether an Ohio statute forbidding the commercial showing of any motion picture film without a license constitutes a prior restraint and is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

Whether a New York statute prohibiting publications of violent materials "principally made up of criminal news, police reports, or accounts of criminal deeds, or pictures, or stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust or crime," is overly vague and violates the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Do the constitutional protections of freedom of expression, including those of the Ohio Constitution, extend to motion pictures?