New York Times national legal correspondent Adam Liptak leads with the Maclean’s/Mark Steyn human rights case in the most recent installment in American Exception, his series of articles looking at parts of the U.S. justice system that are unique in the world. In the story, “Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech” Liptak says of Steyn’s article:

The article’s tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States do not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.

Liptak’s article examines the First Amendment in the U.S. and differing opinions on the handling of hate speech in the country.

In reaction to the Liptak story, U.S. media blogger Jeff Jarvis says the “Internet is the First Amendment brought to life.”

He refers to “Canada’s frightening prosecution of Macleans’s magazine for daring to print opinions that complaining Muslims found offensive” and says:

Our First Amendment argues that it is both undesirable and impossible to contain speech and the marketplace of ideas. The internet enforces that idea. You simply can’t contain speech on it.