Showing posts with label free press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free press. Show all posts

Can the West Stand Up for Free Speech?

by Victor Davis Hanson.  The principle is clear. Western civilization’s creed is free thought and expression, the lubricant of everything from democracy to human rights. Even a simpleton in the West accepts that protecting free expression is not the easy task of ensuring the right to read Homer’s Iliad or do the New York Times crossword puzzle.   ... MORE

Neil MacDonald: More State Power, Not Free Speech, Likely To Be The Actual We-Are-Charlie Result

Well, everyone must at least feel better now,    having chanted and declared for days that we're all Charlie. It was, or it seemed, a cry for freedom of speech, ringing outward from one of the world's first secular democracies. In reality, though, with all due respect to the sentiment behind it, Sunday's great march through the centre of Paris,  ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Despite Stand Against the Terrorist's Veto, France Treats Offensive Words and Images as Crimes

Charlie Hebdo in the dock.       On Sunday, as more than a million people marched through the streets of Paris in support of the right to draw cartoons without being murdered, the French Ministry of Culture and Communication declared that "artistic freedom and freedom of expression stand firm and unflinching at the heart of our common European  ... MORE

The World's 10 Most Responsible Governments

by Kenneth Rapoza.           Want a limited government that’s held accountable by society? Then start packing. With all this talk about fiscal responsibility in the U.S. and Europe, the World Justice Project’s latest rule of law index gives civil society a sense of which governments are fair and accountable. And the U.S. is not even in the top 15.      ... MORE

Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet

by Raymond C. Niles.       The Internet is an achievement of historic importance, arguably rivaling or exceeding the invention of the printing press in its capacity to spread human knowledge and entertainment to the farthest corners of the globe. With the introduction of his printing press in 1450,1 Gutenberg took the books from the hands of  ... MORE

Claire Wolfe: The State Of Freedom In America

The world is becoming less free.     In the Middle East and Africa, Islamist fanatics try to bring back the Dark Ages. Europe stagnates under new layers of regulation imposed by the EU. In the United States, a president who disdains the messy art of political deal-making increasingly seeks to rule by executive order and bureaucratic fiat.        ... MORE

Press To Democrats: We’ll Take Free Speech, Thank You

From the editors of National Review.    Senate Democrats are on the precipice of voting to repeal the First Amendment. That extraordinary fact is a result of the increasingly authoritarian efforts of Democrats, notably Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada, to suppress criticism of themselves and the government, and to suffocate any      ... MORE

Tim Black: Yes, Freedom Of Speech Should Be Absolute

It shouldn’t be killed with qualifications.        Imagine if the Founding Fathers had conceived of liberty and freedom in contemporary terms, as problems to be managed, as sources of risk and harm. Imagine if Thomas Jefferson had penned the Declaration of Independence now, with the assertion that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness      ... MORE

NSA Spying Threatens Press Freedom and Right to Counsel

by Dan Froomkin.     Top journalists and lawyers agree. To do their jobs properly, journalists and lawyers sometimes need to be able to keep information private from the government. And because what journalists and lawyers do is so integral to safeguarding democracy and basic rights, the United States has traditionally recognized their need for   ... MORE

FCC Backpedals On Newsroom-Monitoring Scheme

by Jordan Sekulow and Matthew Clark.       A First Amendment victory over an intrusive federal government doesn’t come along every day, but thanks to a deafening outcry from the American people, the Obama administration has just backed down from an unconstitutional plan to put monitors in newsrooms in a dramatic fashion. Recently,  ... MORE

J.D. Tuccille: U.S. Slides 13 Spots On Press Freedom Index

American liberty in free fall.     If it wasn't enough to see the United States slide in four rankings of economic freedom, Internet liberty, and government transparency last year, the Land of the Brave and Home of the Free (except where prohibited by law) is off to a swell start in 2014 by slipping 13 places on the World Press Freedom Index.          ... MORE

The Gang Of Twelve And Our Secret Government

by Andrew Napolitano.      A new assault on freedom of the press.  Last week, a little noticed clash took place on Capitol Hill involving the fundamental values underlying the First Amendment. The issue was the lawfulness of publishing the secrets that were given to reporters by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward      ... MORE

How Obama Is Embarrassing Democrats & Independents

by Kate Kieffer.   Democrats are blushing. And not because Anthony Weiner is back on Twitter, direct-messaging pretty young girls. Vice President Joe Biden has long held the title of “Liberal Loose Cannon.” But Biden is such a grand hugger and hand-shaker that Democrats still let him work the crowds, crossing their fingers that he won’t say   ... MORE

David Harsanyi: Undermining Our Most Basic Right

This is what happens when you fear free speech.      Perhaps these Obama administration scandals (popularly referred to as "so-called scandals" in liberal media circles) lack the explosive drama of a Watergate and the entertainment value of Bill Clinton's peccadilloes, but for those who are less obsessed with the political consequences and more  ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: An Assault On Freedom Of The Press

Government's response to inconvenient truths.    The firestorm commenced by the revelation of the execution of a search warrant on the personal email server of my Fox News colleague James Rosen continues to rage, and the conflagration engulfing the First Amendment continues to burn; and it is the Department of Justice itself that is fanning  ... MORE

DOJ Wanted Indefinite Tracking Of Fox Reporter's Email

A chilling effect on a once free press.      U.S. prosecutors asked a judge to defer indefinitely notifying a Fox News reporter his email was being monitored in a national security probe, records indicate. Court documents unsealed this week show U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ron Machen argued in 2010 the normal practice of       ... MORE

Obama's War Against The Free Press Gets Creepier

by J.D. Tuccille.      Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the U.S. Department of Justice "investigation" of Fox News chief correspondent James Rosen isn't the intrusive tracking of his movements and contacts — although that's disturbing enough — but the basis for the criminal charges he may ultimately face. At its heart, the allegation     ... MORE