"The freedom of speech is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. It is not simply there. Instead, it is a highly constructed and regulated category of practice. There are many things that it is illegal to “say” in the United States today. For example, it is illegal to display a noose on say, an MTA billboard. It is also illegal to show images of American soldiers who have died in combat, or to show the wooden boxes that house their corpses on the long journey home. For almost ten years now, it has been illegal to reveal the enormity of the horrors practiced by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib. Of course, it has not always been illegal to display a noose or show images of dead US soldiers-both practices that were at some point defended under the tenets of the freedom of speech. The historicity of these sanctions teaches us that the “freedom of speech” is above all else a legal regulation of what can and cannot be said in the United States at any given historical moment."