This community, with its close military ties through the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and Naval Submarine Base, is the last place someone would find sympathy for anyone who would make a false claim about earning a military medal, in the process dishonoring those who truly sacrificed to deserve such a distinction. Such false claims are despicable. But elected leaders did not proceed with due caution when they made it a federal crime.

The U.S. Supreme Court made the right decision this past week when it ruled the Stolen Valor Act of 2006, as written, is an unconstitutional intrusion on the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech.

The act made it a crime to falsely claim to have been awarded military medals. This is a slippery slope for the government to head down. It would have been a dangerous precedent to give Congress the "authority to compile a list of subjects about which false statements are punishable," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy in the majority opinion.

"The mere potential for the exercise of that power casts a chill, a chill the First Amendment cannot permit if free speech, thought, and discourse are to remain the foundation of our freedom," wrote the justice.

Given such authority, perhaps Congress could make it a crime to state falsehoods about a former revered president, or to falsely exaggerate deficit projections, or to inflate a resume. These may seem like farfetched scenarios, but the ability to speak freely, contentiously and, yes, even outrageously is among the most important of liberties. Though this law was well intended, the possibility that the precedent it set could begin to erode a right that so many have fought and died for would be a terrible irony.

The better alternative is to combat such dishonorable speech with the power of truth. Expose those who would try to bolster their own reputations by such false claims to the ridicule and derision they deserve. The Pentagon could help by streamlining its computer records to make it easier to check the validity of such claims.

Ironically, those who truly earn such honors seldom boast about them. So if you hear someone bragging about military medals, be suspicious.