No, no, no, Xeni, itâs a âgood newsâ story: the USA edged out Burkina Faso!
Shouldnât human rights be judged on an absolute, rather than on a relative scale?
Well by golly, weâre still above average!
Even lower than the UK!
(but better than France?)
Free speech, then?
"Uruguay, Namibia, Samoa, Ghana, and South Africa all offer a greater âlevel of freedom of informationâ than the United Statesâ
What the fuck is wrong with the USA? I ask you?
Why the fuck is Finland number one? As a Finn I find that to be really doubtful. Or is the rest of the world that much worse then us?
And Ireland is number 9?
- We have a laws against âblasphemyâ, with a new one brought in in 2009!
- 40% of the media is owned by one corporation, âIndependentâ News & Media.
- The main broadcaster, RTE, is state-owned and is very rarely critical of the government.
- Very strong anti-defamation laws which billionaires use as a stick to block any bad press, even satire.
- Members of the police are not allowed to speak to reporters without approval, on pain of dismissal and/or prosecution.
So I guess being in the top 10 of this list is more a âbest of a bad lotâ kind of thing.
That is weirdly surprising, given the impact the UK liable laws have on press freedom on these shores.
This will pretty much be one of the true legacies of the current administration: FOIA refusals, persecution of journalists & whistleblowers, and vastly increased surveillance.
But donât expect any journalists or team blue to notice or protest until itâs some buffoon like Trump in the driverâs seat. THEN itâs gonna be rending of this and wailing of that.
No one cares when itâs their side abusing the power.
Republicans like the surveillance state, period. (with a very few exceptions such as Rand Paul)
Democrats like the surveillance state when there is a Democrat in the White House.
So the only scenario in which any of this shit gets rolled back is a Democratic Congress with a Republican president.
Try telling that to Jared Polis or Ron Wyden.
Finland has blasphemy laws too. I think last time they weâre used was in 1969 when Harro Koskinen was convicted for Sikamessias (Pig Messiah):
Oh I was wrong it was in 2009 when some racist cunt councilman (true finn of course) got day fined for calling Islam a paedophile religion.
A very good point.
Apologists argueâŚwith some justificationâŚthat the interests of the nation (the US, in this case) are not always best served by the modern free and open press. The MSM does little to prove otherwise, as evidenced by the perpetual yowling and faux-outrage that sucks the public dialog into orbit around minutae, nonsense, pumped up âscandalsâ, and outright bullshit. The congressional obstructionists love it because it enables them too keep the âgreat booboisieâ distracted from real issues. I donât blame the WH and Obama administration for trying to control the dialog somewhat so that things can get accomplished.
I DO find fault with the extent to which that control is applied. Tbe NSAâs shenanigans need to be examined and critiqued against the principals of privacy and rights. The press needs to do that because no one else really canâŚunless the likes of Snowden take a stand and shine the light. The NSA does NOT have carte blanche to do whatever it claims to be needed.
Yet, the scatterbrained and shallow news media demonstrate every day that they do not have the gravitas, balance, and sense of responsibility it takes. I laugh when they complain about this matter. They do not deserve to be taken seriously.
Even soâŚeven soâŚThe White House has been far too restrictive and punitive when it comes to access to important issues and information. The media are not the victimsâŚthe public is.
This WILL be a demerit on an otherwise stellar record of accomplishment and challenges met.
_
There are a lot more democrats like Feinstein than like Wyden.
No argument there. I was just stating that the original premise was rather simplistic.
But we need to fight the War on Whistleblowers, itâs to protect freedom.
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