[Millennium]

Common misconception. Shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre is not a crime. The crime is causing a panic without cause: if you've got a good cause (for example, if there really is a fire) then you've done nothing wrong. The crime in releasing classified documents is in the breach of trust, not in the leak itself. Libel and slander are types of fraud: the crime comes from the falsehood, not the statements themselves. Free speech should be absolute and sacrosanct, but this doesn't mean it should protect people from breaking the law.

The folks in creepshots and its kin are in fact doing something against the law, and they should be shut down accordingly. This is not a free-speech issue.

[rmc]

But don't you see, that's the point. There are limits on "free speech", you just declare something as illegal. This kind of thinking is how many other countries have laws banning certain speech, which USA courts would probably view as protected. E.g. in EU you have the right to privacy, so there are various laws that say you cannot report things about some people without their consent. That sort of thing might be protected in USA. But the EU say "Wrecking someone's privacy is a crime, and we have free speech". Saying "All speech is protected, but if there are some laws then the thing doesn't count as speech and hence isn't allowed to be protected", is misleading, because loads of countries follow that rule, but have different free speech rules.

Every country decides where to set it's limits, the USA is almost certainly the one that has a few limits as possible, but it has limits, it has set the line somewhere/