America’s greatest idea is still under threat
America’s greatest idea is still under threat
美国最伟大的理念仍面临威胁
As the United States turns 250 years old, we have work to do. 随着美国迎来 250 周年诞辰，我们仍有工作要做。
The United States of America recently turned 250 years old. What a spectacle! The fireworks were amazing, and millions of proud people celebrated across the nation — even around the world. France lit up the Eiffel Tower; Japan had fireworks. French fighter jets flew above New York City with trails of red, white, and blue — our first major ally streaking our shared colors through the sky. Meanwhile, shameful white nationalists paraded through our nation’s capital. This has always been a country of paradoxes. 美利坚合众国最近迎来了 250 周年诞辰。多么壮观的景象！烟花绚烂夺目，全国乃至全世界数以百万计的自豪民众共同庆祝。法国点亮了埃菲尔铁塔；日本燃放了烟花。法国战斗机在纽约市上空飞过，留下了红、白、蓝三色的尾迹——我们最初的主要盟友在天空中划出了我们共同的色彩。与此同时，可耻的白人民族主义者在我们的首都游行。这始终是一个充满矛盾的国家。
Our 250th birthday counts back to the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The declaration was a radical and astonishing document that still serves as America’s soul. But the beating heart of the nation wouldn’t come until more than a decade later, when the Constitution was ratified. That document is why I’m able to write this to you today. And we need you to help protect it. 我们的 250 周年诞辰是从 1776 年《独立宣言》发表算起的。《独立宣言》是一份激进且令人惊叹的文件，至今仍是美国的灵魂。但这个国家的跳动心脏直到十多年后《宪法》获得批准才真正形成。正是那份文件让我今天能够写下这些文字。我们需要你来帮助保护它。
The First Amendment to the Constitution is so potent that people across the world who live in places untouched by US law often seem to think they have the same rights it establishes. The First Amendment is our day-one theory of what makes a free society. It’s literally the first cure by the framers for a project they knew would be forever imperfect and incomplete — fixable only by way of the right to free expression. 宪法第一修正案的影响力如此之大，以至于世界各地生活在不受美国法律管辖地区的人们，往往也认为自己拥有该修正案所确立的同等权利。第一修正案是我们关于“何为自由社会”的初始理论。对于制宪者而言，这实际上是他们为一项深知将永远不完美、不完整的工程所开出的第一剂良方——而这一工程只能通过言论自由权来不断完善。
The Verge exists today because of this great project. We believe in it deeply. The First Amendment affords us the knowledge that we’re likely free from imprisonment from expressing our freedom to speak. But journalism and speech are always under assault. It’s one of the reasons why we’ll always need lawyers despite likely having the strongest editorial ethics policy in the industry. 《The Verge》之所以存在，正是因为这一伟大的工程。我们深信不疑。第一修正案让我们确信，我们表达言论的自由不太可能导致入狱。但新闻业和言论自由始终受到攻击。这就是为什么尽管我们可能拥有业内最严格的编辑道德准则，但我们依然需要律师的原因。
Here’s what the First Amendment says: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 第一修正案的内容如下：国会不得制定关于确立宗教或禁止宗教自由活动的法律；不得剥夺言论自由或出版自由；不得剥夺人民和平集会及向政府请愿以申诉冤情的权利。
This is a compelling and beautiful idea. But we’ve had to fight to keep it alive from the beginning. 这是一个引人入胜且美好的理念。但从一开始，我们就必须不断抗争才能让它存续下去。
John Adams, one of the fiercest revolutionaries who railed against British tyranny and helped secure independence, completely fucked up the First Amendment when he became the second US president. Adams’ series of Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 look positively Trumpian in retrospect, railing against foreigners, expanding presidential power to arrest, imprison, or deport people, and perhaps most insidiously, making it a crime for American citizens to print “scandalous and malicious” writings against the government. Adams surely loved the country he created, but nonetheless shrunk before the magnitude of its liberties. 约翰·亚当斯，这位曾猛烈抨击英国暴政并助力赢得独立的激进革命者之一，在担任美国第二任总统时，却彻底搞砸了第一修正案。回望过去，亚当斯在 1798 年颁布的一系列《客籍法和煽动叛乱法》简直带有“特朗普式”的色彩：排斥外国人，扩大总统逮捕、监禁或驱逐人员的权力，而最阴险的是，它将美国公民印刷反对政府的“诽谤性和恶意”文字定为犯罪。亚当斯无疑热爱他所创建的国家，但在其自由的宏大面前，他却退缩了。
Fast-forward to World War I, when the First Amendment was again under attack, this time by the Supreme Court. The court’s fearful message about free speech still sticks with us. You’ve probably heard the phrase “you can’t shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” — not actually true. The misquoting and misinterpretation here is darkly funny: Trevor Timm, in The Atlantic, notes the court decision the phrase refers to was actually about whether an American socialist “could be convicted under the Espionage Act for writing and distributing a pamphlet that expressed his opposition to the draft.” It almost sounds ripped from contemporary headlines. (Nearly a century later, the Espionage Act would be used again to target, this time, a New York Times journalist.) 快进到第一次世界大战时期，第一修正案再次受到攻击，这次是来自最高法院。法院关于言论自由的恐惧信息至今仍影响着我们。你可能听过“你不能在拥挤的剧院里大喊‘着火了’”这句话——但这其实并非事实。这种引用错误和曲解令人感到一种黑色幽默：特雷弗·蒂姆在《大西洋月刊》中指出，该短语所指的法院判决，实际上是关于一名美国社会主义者“是否可以因撰写和散发表达其反对征兵立场的小册子，而根据《间谍法》被定罪”。这听起来简直像是当下的新闻标题。（近一个世纪后，《间谍法》再次被用来针对一名《纽约时报》记者。）
Misunderstandings about the First Amendment still abound. On the front lines we most readily see it in police confrontations where armed agents of the state bungle their constitutional duties with disastrous results. 对第一修正案的误解依然比比皆是。在第一线，我们最容易在警察对峙中看到这一点，武装的国家代理人往往会搞砸他们的宪法职责，并导致灾难性的后果。
Cops are routinely so terrible at understanding America’s foundational law that there’s now a cottage industry of streamers and influencers who work as “First Amendment auditors” — people who intentionally flex their right to record in public to bait dummies into abridging their freedom of speech. It’s easy to go down TikTok rabbit holes where you’ll find someone recording an illegal traffic stop from inside their car, or a fully kitted streamer recording harassment on a public sidewalk. When the police inevitably show up to hassle someone for exercising their rights, the stakes are immediately raised. 警察对美国根本法的理解往往非常糟糕，以至于现在出现了一个由主播和网红组成的“第一修正案审计员”小众行业——这些人故意行使他们在公共场合的录像权，诱导那些糊涂虫去侵犯他们的言论自由。在 TikTok 上很容易陷入这种循环：你会看到有人在车内拍摄非法的交通拦截，或者全副武装的主播在公共人行道上记录骚扰行为。当警察不可避免地出现并因某人行使权利而对其进行刁难时，事态会立即升级。
In a best-case scenario, a higher-ranking cop arrives and dispels their colleagues’ unconstitutional conduct. In other cases, someone ends up getting detained or arrested for completely protected behavior. 在最好的情况下，级别更高的警察会赶到并制止其同事违宪的行为。而在其他情况下，有人最终会因为完全受保护的行为而被拘留或逮捕。
It’s even worse than usual in 2026, because we now live under an administration that’s flooding cities with barely trained federal agents who see constitutionally protected behavior as a threat. This has resulted in deaths, assaults on reporters, and an untold broader cost of regular people having to endure the immense burden of confronting the justice system simply for doing things they have the fundamental right to do. The right to speak and assemble is especially valid when it’s in protest of the government. That’s the whole point of this thing! And yet. 2026 年的情况比以往任何时候都要糟糕，因为我们现在生活在一个向城市大量派遣训练不足的联邦特工的政府治下，他们将宪法保护的行为视为威胁。这导致了死亡、对记者的袭击，以及普通民众仅仅因为做了他们有基本权利去做的事情，就不得不承受对抗司法系统的巨大负担，这种更广泛的代价难以估量。言论和集会的权利在抗议政府时尤为重要。这正是这一切的意义所在！然而。
The latest assaults on the First Amendment have been encouraged by people all the way up the chain of command. We’re being betrayed by officials who are supposed to protect us, people who swore an oath to the Constitution and ought to know better. The FCC is not supposed to… 对第一修正案的最新攻击得到了指挥链上层人士的怂恿。我们正被那些本应保护我们的官员所背叛，这些人曾向宪法宣誓，本应更明事理。联邦通信委员会（FCC）本不应该……