The Communications Act of 1934 regulated television and radio. Broadcasters
have public obligations, which serve as a limit on their First Amendment
rights.

Thousands of Americans were arrested under criminal syndicalism laws in the
late 1910s and early 1920s despite being in direct opposition to the First
Amendment.

The federal equal time rule requires broadcasters to treat political
candidates equally in terms of air time. Some see the rule as a violation
of First Amendment rights.

The Espionage Act of 1917, passed two months after the U.S. entered World
War I, criminalized the release of information that could hurt national
security and causing insubordination or disloyalty in the military. The law
was expanded in 1918 to criminalize dissent against the war effort, but
that portion of the law (the Sedition Act) was repealed.

The fairness doctrine attempted to ensure that broadcast coverage of
controversial issues was fair. Many journalists opposed the policy as a
violation of the First Amendment.

Some states as late as the 1940s prohibited musical desecration or
alteration of “The Star-Spangled Banner” national anthem. Such laws would
be considered unconstitutional today as a restriction of First Amendment
rights to free expression.

The Sedition Act of 1918 curtailed the free-speech rights of U.S. citizens
during World War I. The law overstepped the bounds of First Amendment
freedoms.

The Taft-Hartley Act addressed appropriate forms of symbolic speech, as
well as acceptable and unacceptable regulation of the right to association
granted in the First Amendment.

The Tillman Act of 1907, the first federal effort to regulate campaign
finance in U.S. elections, banned corporations from expending treasury
money to influence a federal election.

The Wireless Ship Act of 1910 was the United States’ first effort to
regulate radio traffic, but the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 revealed
shortcomings in the law.