I was particularly disturbed to read in the paper this weekend a ruling by a Colorado judge that the federal Stolen Valor Act is unconstitutional because it infringes upon First Amendment rights. Like most journalists, I’m a strong First Amendment advocate, but I can’t support the idea that the constitutionally protected freedom of speech includes the right to lie and deliberately misrepresent yourself.

In this case, a guy lied about being a 9/11 surivor and Iraq war veteran. I’ve come across a lot of these types. They are obsessed with drawing attention to themselves, and they don’t seem to understand the boundary between truth and fiction. One soldier I met in Afghanistan did separate interviews with The Associated Press, CNN and The Dallas Morning News portraying himself as a former stock broker in New York who was in the World Trade Center during the attacks. He claimed to have survived and was so upset by the attacks that he gave up his six-figure salary, quit his job and joined the Army so he could give something back to his country. It was only after repeated grilling (post-publication of the lie) by me and an AP reporter that the guy finally admitted he had lied. I knew other guys who lied about being Special Forces members, then used those lies to get contracting jobs.

In the Colorado case, Rick Strandlof claimed to be Purple Heart Marine veteran “Rick Duncan,” and used this lie to attain a leadership post in a veterans group lobbying for better benefits. He spoke publicly, apparently for monetary gain. He was arrested in October under the Stolen Valor Act and faced a year’s prison sentence and up to $100,000 in fines.

Yet a U.S. district judge overturned the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a criminal offense to lie about military service. The judge said prosecutors failed to show anyone was harmed by Strandlof’s lie. It seems to me that every single veteran and active-duty service member is harmed when people lie about having performed service in uniform that they clearly didn’t do.

Then again, I have to wonder where our constitutional free-speech protections end. Politicians lie all the time. Can we really outlaw lying (excluding lying under oath)? And is lying really something we should regard as free speech?