Sedition, the bugbear of would-be censors, has never really caught on as a tool of prosecutors in the US. There have been several attempts to use laws against sedition to attack dissidents in the US, but only a few cases have stuck, and it was usually during wartime or with extremely unfavorable defendants. Courts have (rightly) slapped down most uses of sedition laws as violations of free speech.
Here are some crimes you can commit by speaking, where freedom of speech cannot be used as a defence:
- assault / terror threats
- extortion / blackmail
- fraud
- conspiracy / solicitation to commit a crime
- treason / sedition
- perjury
- slander
> sedition
Sedition, the bugbear of would-be censors, has never really caught on as a tool of prosecutors in the US. There have been several attempts to use laws against sedition to attack dissidents in the US, but only a few cases have stuck, and it was usually during wartime or with extremely unfavorable defendants. Courts have (rightly) slapped down most uses of sedition laws as violations of free speech.
Slander isn't a crime in most places.