Gene Policinski: First Amendment claims don’t always win

  The First Amendment’s five freedoms ensure that government doesn’t run roughshod over our religious-liberty and free-expression rights.

  But sometimes, the First Amendment doesn’t win out.

  Thankfully, it’s not all that often. When it does happen, generally the situation involves balancing one of the First Amendment freedoms — religion, speech, press, assembly and petition — against other parts of the Bill of Rights.

  The threat of terrorism is one such area. Critics of unrestrained speech by our enemies — and sometimes, of opponents at home — have observed that the First Amendment is not "a suicide pact.”