>[!abstract] >The phrase "I know it when I see it" was used in 1964 by United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to describe his threshold test for obscenity applicable to protected speech that could not be censored. Stewart wrote: > > I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. > >The expression became one of the best-known phrases in the history of the Supreme Court (adapted from Wikipedia). >[!related] >- **North** (upstream): — >- **West** (similar): — >- **East** (different): — >- **South** (downstream): —