in re: censorship, penalties

CRS | Terrorism, Violent Extremism, and the Internet: Free Speech Considerations,* 6 May 2019

At the outset, it is not clear that a foreign national (i.e., a non-U.S. citizen or resident) could invoke the protections of the First Amendment in a specific U.S.prosecution or litigation involving online speech that the foreign national posted from abroad. The Supreme Court has never directly opined on this question. However, its decisions regarding the extraterritorial application of other constitutional protections to foreign nationals and lower court decisions involving speech made by foreign nationals while outside of the United States suggest that the First Amendment may not apply in that scenario. In contrast, free speech considerations are likely to be highly relevant in evaluating the legality of(1)proposals for the U.S. government to regulate what internet users in the United States can post,or (2)the enforcement of existing U.S. laws where the government seeks to hold U.S. persons liable for their online speech.

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