Real heroes protect our precious freedoms

Published 12:00 am Thursday, July 5, 2012

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 28 that even reprehensible lies were protected free speech, it reminded us again how vigilant we must be to preserve this nation’s most precious principles.

The high court’s ruling in “U.S. v. Alvarez,” otherwise known as the “stolen valor” decision, was timed perfectly for a nation that’s celebrating the principles on which it was founded.

The word “freedom” is the theme of this Independence Day as Oregonians and other Americans marked the 236th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

We’re certain the nation’s founders weren’t thinking about the freedom to tell a lie when they declared their independence from a tyrannical king in 1776, but the concepts that later flowed from their rebellious actions have led to broader and broader interpretations of liberty.

Thus, we must agree with the Supreme Court’s decision last week that the Constitution’s First Amendment extends so far as to protect even a person who falsely claims heroic actions. In the case before the court, Xavier Alvarez, a former member of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District board in Los Angeles County, said he was a former U.S. Marine and recipient of the Medal of Honor. In reality, Alvarez had never served in the military.

When his deception was uncovered, he was charged under the Stolen Valor Act, which made it a crime to falsely claim military honors. His case eventually found its way to the highest court, which struck down the 2006 law.

We have no sympathy for Alvarez or for other people who have presented themselves as military heroes worthy of admiration, when in fact their character is exactly the opposite.

Yet, we do think the court’s 6-3 decision was important to preserve an expansive definition of free speech. If the court had ruled that a lie — even a contemptible one — could be criminalized, then doors would be opened to pass laws against other forms of lying.

Of course, there are many times when lies can result in criminal charges, if those lies, for example, rise to the level of fraud or perjury. In this case, however, there was no evidence that Alvarez had sought anything through his deceit other than the respect that had otherwise eluded him.

The court did leave open the possibility that a more narrowly written law — one that made it a crime to seek money or other consideration by claiming to have military honors — might pass a constitutional test. We could support that approach, because it moves beyond mere speech to include fraudulent behavior.

That road, however, is fraught with unseen twists that could pose hazards to our country’s unprecedented protection of expression — even unpopular expression.

For just as our constitutional framers weren’t thinking about a national debate on lying, neither could they have envisioned a system in which a person’s military record could be checked instantly.

The Congressional Medal of Honor Society maintains a website with a searchable roster of all recipients (living and dead). Xavier Alvarez’s name is not there.

So, while we agree that there should be a penalty for those who lie about their military service, we believe the public humiliation heaped on those who are caught may be punishment enough (just ask former Oregon Congressman Wes Cooley). We’d like to see a discussion about whether the armed forces could make their records about military service more easily accessible without impinging on the privacy of those who served our country.

It’s far easier to confirm that someone was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic track team than verify that same person was a member of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines.

In the meantime, though, we think Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, offered a timely civics lesson when he argued that the First Amendment “protects the speech we detest as well as the speech we embrace.”