From the archive
Who Pays for "Free" Speech?
Law professor Eric Heinze reminds us that for all the rhetoric about free speech, demonstrations and protests often impose on the public costs of millions of dollars.
Speech can be free because it does not impose costs on anyone. As long as I obey the law, I should be free to march and protest wherever and whenever I please because no one else needs to pay. Right?
Wrong. All of us pay for free speech, and it is not cheap. For example, digital speech depends on infrastructure, such as vast data storage centers. And cooling systems in these data storage centers consume millions of gallons of water per day, at rates often negotiated below what is paid by ordinary residents. This is a corporate subsidy. Who pays? The public.
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