Explores five issues related to technology's impact on privacy and access to information--regulation and licensing of the press, electronic surveillance, invasion of privacy, copyright, and policy-making and regulation. The importance of First Amendment rights and civil liberties in forming a coherent national information policy is stressed.…

Considers how the Bill of Rights originated and has evolved. Reviews the political views of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison and the nature of their support for the Bill of Rights. Explains nineteenth-century classical liberalism and its revolutionary view that political power inhered in the individual rather than in property ownership. (CH)

The principles, values, and issues of our constitutional heritage that should be emphasized in citizenship education are based on the concepts of liberty and power. The Constitution is not a sacred icon formulated by immortals, but rather a changing and controversial framework guided by a diverse group of practical politicians, sensitive to their…

A collection of essays on the 10 amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution is presented in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights. The following essays are included: "The First Amendment and the Virtues of an Open Society" (R. Smolla); "The First Amendment as a…

Presents a brief conceptual background on the First Amendment freedoms and due process. Offers three case studies to help students explore the issue of balancing First Amendment freedoms with the governmental responsibility for the common good. (JDH)

Explores the issue of balancing liberty and order within the United States. Discusses the role of the Bill of Rights, focusing on the amendments in the document and the later amendments that ensure the liberty of U.S. citizens. Explains how order and liberty are ensured and includes discussion questions. (CMK)

Engages students in comparing the rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) with those present in the United States Bill of Rights and other constitutional amendments. Challenges the students to explore reasons for the presence or absence of certain rights and to reflect on the role of the government. (CMK)

This report argues that fundamental constitutional liberties have undergone severe changes and continue to be threatened because of the changes in the federal judiciary that have been brought about by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. This judicial change has been effected through the appointment of judges with two qualities: first, a…

This paper begins with the theme that because education is so important to the exercise of one's fundamental rights and to personal, social, cultural, political, economic, and human development, it is one of the unenumerated rights retained by the American people through Amendment IX of the Bill of Rights. After arguing for the proposition that…

This social studies unit considers the nature and sources of the individual rights of American citizenship as well as the complexity of the federal system as it operates on the liberties of the individual and relates to state government. The unit is structured chronologically to indicate that the history of liberty is largely the history of legal…

Explains a lesson in which secondary social studies or history students research origins of the freedoms to assemble and petition the government. Points out that the lesson provides students with an opportunity to examine how these freedoms evolved since the American Revolution. Reports that students discuss how to protect these freedoms during…

Placing the debate in the United States over amending the Constitution to permit state-sanctioned school prayer in global perspective, this report analyzes the results of a survey of the school prayer policies of 72 countries. The report concludes that the vast majority of the major countries of the world, including Western Europe, Central…

Two articles in this instructional newsletter elucidate rulings by the United States Supreme Court, Circuit Court of Appeals, and District Courts affecting state sponsored school prayer: (1) "First Amendment Prayer Pendulum"; (2) "First Amendment. Rosenberger v University of Virginia." The newsletter provides the facts of the…