clear and present danger test
E103580
The clear and present danger test is a legal doctrine used by U.S. courts to determine under what circumstances limits can be placed on First Amendment freedoms of speech and expression, particularly when such speech poses an immediate threat to public safety or national security.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| clear and present danger test canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T881441 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: clear and present danger test Context triple: [Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., notableIdea, clear and present danger test]
-
A.
Lemon test
The Lemon test is a three-pronged legal standard used by U.S. courts to determine whether a government action violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
-
B.
Smith Act
The Smith Act is a 1940 U.S. federal law that criminalized advocating the violent overthrow of the government and was widely used during the early Cold War to prosecute suspected communists.
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C.
Brandenburg v. Ohio
Brandenburg v. Ohio is a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision that significantly strengthened free speech protections by establishing the "imminent lawless action" test for when advocacy of violence can be punished under the First Amendment.
-
D.
R (Jackson) v Attorney General
R (Jackson) v Attorney General is a landmark 2005 House of Lords case that examined the constitutional validity of legislation enacted under the Parliament Acts and explored fundamental principles about the limits of parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law in the UK.
-
E.
Washington v. Davis
Washington v. Davis is a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case that held laws or policies with a racially disproportionate impact do not violate the Equal Protection Clause absent proof of discriminatory intent.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: clear and present danger test Target entity description: The clear and present danger test is a legal doctrine used by U.S. courts to determine under what circumstances limits can be placed on First Amendment freedoms of speech and expression, particularly when such speech poses an immediate threat to public safety or national security.
-
A.
Lemon test
The Lemon test is a three-pronged legal standard used by U.S. courts to determine whether a government action violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
-
B.
Smith Act
The Smith Act is a 1940 U.S. federal law that criminalized advocating the violent overthrow of the government and was widely used during the early Cold War to prosecute suspected communists.
-
C.
Brandenburg v. Ohio
Brandenburg v. Ohio is a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision that significantly strengthened free speech protections by establishing the "imminent lawless action" test for when advocacy of violence can be punished under the First Amendment.
-
D.
R (Jackson) v Attorney General
R (Jackson) v Attorney General is a landmark 2005 House of Lords case that examined the constitutional validity of legislation enacted under the Parliament Acts and explored fundamental principles about the limits of parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law in the UK.
-
E.
Washington v. Davis
Washington v. Davis is a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case that held laws or policies with a racially disproportionate impact do not violate the Equal Protection Clause absent proof of discriminatory intent.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
First Amendment doctrine
ⓘ
constitutional law doctrine ⓘ legal doctrine ⓘ |
| addresses | tension between free speech and government security interests ⓘ |
| appliedInCase |
Abrams v. United States
ⓘ
Debs v. United States ⓘ Frohwerk v. United States ⓘ Gitlow v. New York ⓘ Schenck v. United States ⓘ Whitney v. California ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
freedom of expression
ⓘ
freedom of speech ⓘ |
| associatedWithJustice |
Louis D. Brandeis
ⓘ
linked to:
Justice Louis D. Brandeis
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. ⓘ |
| category |
United States constitutional law tests
ⓘ
United States free speech case law ⓘ |
| coreConcept |
focuses on immediacy and seriousness of harm from speech
ⓘ
government may restrict speech that creates a clear and present danger of substantive evils ⓘ |
| criticizedFor |
potential to suppress dissent
ⓘ
vagueness ⓘ |
| developedByCourt | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| developedInCase | Schenck v. United States ⓘ |
| evolvedInto | imminent lawless action standard in Brandenburg v. Ohio ⓘ |
| focusesOn |
likelihood that speech will produce substantive evils
ⓘ
temporal proximity between speech and potential harm ⓘ |
| historicalUse | used to uphold convictions for anti-war speech during World War I ⓘ |
| influencedBy | wartime concerns about national security ⓘ |
| jurisdiction |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| keyPhrase | clear and present danger ⓘ |
| legalField |
civil liberties law
ⓘ
constitutional law ⓘ free speech law ⓘ |
| limitedByCase | Brandenburg v. Ohio ⓘ |
| purpose |
to determine when the government may restrict speech under the First Amendment
ⓘ
to identify speech that poses an immediate threat to public safety or national security ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
ⓘ
free speech clause ⓘ national security law ⓘ public safety ⓘ |
| replacedOrNarrowedBy | imminent lawless action test ⓘ |
| requires |
assessment of degree of harm
ⓘ
assessment of proximity of harm ⓘ |
| standardFor |
permissible limits on advocacy of illegal conduct
ⓘ
permissible limits on political speech ⓘ permissible limits on wartime speech ⓘ |
| usedBy |
U.S. federal courts
ⓘ
state courts in the United States ⓘ |
| yearIntroduced | 1919 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: clear and present danger test Description of subject: The clear and present danger test is a legal doctrine used by U.S. courts to determine under what circumstances limits can be placed on First Amendment freedoms of speech and expression, particularly when such speech poses an immediate threat to public safety or national security.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.