MSNBC Legal Analyst Refers to First Amendment as ‘Achilles Heel’ That Leaves America ‘Vulnerable’

MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade referred to the First Amendment as an “Achilles heel” that leaves the United States “vulnerable” to disinformation during an interview with Rachel Maddow earlier this week.

McQuade was promoting her new book, Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America when she fielded a question from Maddow about whether the United States is “particularly vulnerable” to disinformation or only just as susceptible to it as other countries.

“Actually, Rachel, I think we’re more susceptible to it than other countries, and that’s because some of our greatest strengths can also be our Achilles heel. So, for example, our deep commitment to free speech in our First Amendment: It is a cherished right, it is an important right in democracy, and nobody wants to get rid of it. But it makes us vulnerable to claims that anything we try to do to regulate speech is censorship,” began McQuade, a former U.S. attorney appointed by Barack Obama. “Of course, the Supreme Court has held that all fundamental rights, even the right to free speech, can be limited as long as there is a compelling governmental interest and the restriction is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. But I think any time someone tries to do anything that might limit free speech, people claim censorship.”

Eventually, McQuade got around to insisting that “we need to have a conversation and common sense solutions to these things.”

“Instead, we throw out terms like censorship, we call each other names, we use labels, and we all retreat to our opposite sides,” she lamented. “We need to be pragmatic and come up with real solutions. But it [the First Amendment] is, I think, one of the things that makes America particularly vulnerable to disinformation.”

In addition to her work in the media, McQuade is a law professor at the University of Michigan.

Watch above via MSNBC.