As a newspaper, we vigorously defend the First Amendment right to free speech. It’s the most potent freedom ever granted a human citizenry, and our most effective weapon against tyranny and oppression.

This is what the founders’ intended – guaranteeing the vox populi is never silenced. (Around this time, every four years, this right certainly makes this country an interesting and tad uncomfortable place.)

Yet, just as we wield our freedoms for good, we worry when our freedoms defend bad actions.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has sided with that thinking, by declaring as unconstitutional a statute that prohibited political candidates from using unauthorized endorsements in campaigns.

The law the court struck down last week came from a 1990s example in which a House candidate touted an endorsement from a fictional school superintendent. By the time this fraud was discovered, the election was over. That’s why the law was passed without fanfare.

But the specific case before the court challenging the law involved the use of two 2004 endorsements by Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe during the 2006 House campaign of Michael Mowles, of Cape Elizabeth.

Neither senator endorsed him that year. Mowles did cite the vintage of the endorsements, in finer print. The Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices then fined him $1.

He has won his appeal, in what’s billed as a First Amendment victory. We’re not so sure.

The court said the law was an undue burden on political speech.

In pure terms, the court is right. The ideal scenario is letting speech combat speech. If one political candidate says something, for example, the other should fire back.

It’s the American way.

But extending this ideal to the trafficking of deliberate misinformation – like unauthorized endorsements – strikes us wrong. Our First Amendment right to speak defends many things, for good and ill.

It’s bothersome when it defends clear deception.

That is what using an unauthorized endorsement is, after all. While safeguarding speech from government regulation resonates, there’s nothing defendable about what Mowles or the superintendent-inventing candidate did. They misled voters by falsely claiming these endorsements.

That the court says they have the constitutional right to do so doesn’t make us feel any better.

Honesty in political advertising is scarce. The “catch-me-if-you-can” approach to politicking is worrying.

But the court found Maine’s law as unconstitutional. While we agree with restraining government regulation of speech in principle, this particular practice should not be tolerated.

This deceptive arena still warrants regulating, if not by statute, than by rule.