Free Expression and Personal Idenification

Freedom of expression is a liberal puzzle.' Liberals are all convinced of its vital importance, yet why it deserves this importance is a mystery. The source of the problem is simple. While a person's right to freedom of expression is given high priority, and is protected (or, in political morality, is held to deserve protection) to a far greater degree than a person's interest in having employment, or in not running a risk of an accident when driving along public roads, it is evident that most people value these interests, and many others which do not enjoy special legal protection, much more than they value their right to free expression. Worse still, there can be little doubt that most people are right not to value their right to free expression highly. With few exceptions people's interest in their right to free expression is rather small. The right of freedom of expression protects people's freedom to communicate in public. 'Communication' is to be understood broadly to include much more than the communication of propositional information. It includes any act of symbolic expression undertaken with the intention that it be understood to be that by the public or part of the public. Thus communication here covers not only all the forms of language-dependent communication but also pictorial and musical communication, and a whole range of symbolic acts such as picketing, displaying banners, wearing uniform. It does not cover acts of expression which are not convention-based symbolic expression such as blushing, or expressing anger at one's competitor's success by setting fire to his shop.2 Furthermore, to be protected communication has to be public, ie addressed to or made available