Best & Worst of CPAC's Free Speech Ratings: United States

The United States ranks the best in CPAC's inaugural Freedom of Speech Ratings with a stellar 100% rating. This top rating is thanks to the First Amendment's constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech.

CPAC's rating of the U.S. considered the case of Douglass Mackey, an X (fomerly Twitter) user, who was given a seven month prison sentence after a politically motivated prosecution. The case stemmed from Mackey's 2016 posting of a meme which urged Hillary Clinton voters to "Avoid the line. Vote from home. Text 'Hillary' to 59925." While this speech could be construed as election interference which is not protected by the First Amendment, left-wing X users posted identical content urging Trump voters to "Skip poll lines at #Election2016 and TEXT in your vote! Text votes are legit. Or vote tomorrow on Super Wednesday!" The left-wing posters were not charged, which suggests that political affiliation, not conduct, was the cause of Mackey's prosecution. Mackey was sentenced to seven months in prison, but did not serve any time because his sentence was stayed until it was overturned by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Since Mackey did not serve any time in prison, the USA receives a Freedom of Speech Rating of 100%. The USA is the only country in the world with a Constitutional guarantee of Freedom of Speech. CPAC's Freedom of Speech Ratings highlight the blessing this freedom is and how freedom of speech can be a gateway to other freedoms.

Read the full brief here.

Not every case of imprisonment for speech gets widespread media attention. If you are aware of a case in which a person was imprisoned for speech and received a harsher sentence than the political prisoner who we feature in the scorecard, please send the details of the case to slaird2@conservative.org. To meet our methodological criteria, the person must be 1) imprisoned or sentenced to prison for speech that would have been protected under the US first amendment, 2) a citizen of the country in which they are imprisoned, 3) received a sentence of imprisonment for at least one month OR were imprisoned without being sentenced for at least 3 months 4) not imprisoned for any actual crime during the same period for which they were sentenced for a speech crime. 

CPAC vehemently opposes the views of many of the political prisoners featured in the Freedom of Speech Ratings. Political prisoners are featured in the Freedom of Speech Ratings for the purpose of revealing the state of legal Freedom of Speech protection in their countries. Political prisoners are selected based on the objective facts of their cases; each selected prisoner is the person who received the harshest sentence in that country for speech that would have been protected by the US First Amendment. CPAC stands for the right to Freedom of Speech for everyone, even people whose views we vehemently oppose.