The U.S. Supreme Court case Joseph McIntyre, Executor of Estate of Margaret McIntyre, Deceased v. Ohio Elections Commission in 1994 revolved around the issue of anonymous political speech and its protection under the First Amendment. The case was initiated when Margaret McIntyre distributed leaflets opposing a proposed school tax levy without including her name on them as required by an Ohio law. After being fined $100 by the Ohio Elections Commission for this violation, she challenged the constitutionality of this statute all the way to the Supreme Court after her death with her husband acting as executor. In a 7-2 decision, it ruled that prohibiting anonymous political or campaign literature infringes upon freedom of speech protected by First Amendment rights and declared that anonymity is a shield from tyranny.

In the dissenting opinion for McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, Justice Scalia argued that historical evidence did not support the majority's view that anonymous political speech is protected by the First Amendment. He contended that laws requiring disclosure of authorship were common in early American history and thus, it was unlikely such laws would be considered unconstitutional by those who drafted and ratified the Bill of Rights. Furthermore, he asserted that there are legitimate government interests served by these types of regulations including preventing fraudulent and libelous statements as well as providing voters with additional relevant information about a message’s source. Therefore, according to Scalia's dissenting viewpoint, Ohio’s law prohibiting anonymous campaign literature should have been upheld.