In the United States, the First Amendment protects a wide variety of speech, with exceptions only for defamatory, libelous, or violence-inciting speech

Individual freedoms that constrain what the state may do, including speech, assembly, religion, privacy and protection from arbitrary search or detention. Distinct from civil rights, which concern equal treatment, these limit government power rather than extend entitlement, and are usually enforced through the courts.

The right to gather, publish and distribute information without prior restraint or reprisal, and the legal protections that secure it. Covers source protection, prosecutions of reporters, access to public proceedings and the conditions under which journalism can be practised at all.