Your move, Mr. Biden

IN 1766, the Swedish parliament passed a legislation supporting the freedom of the press, now recognized as the world’s first. The Freedom of the Press Act abolished the Swedish government’s role as a censor of printed matter.

The English poet John Milton, in 1644, wrote his response to the British Parliament’s passage of a law requiring the government to approve all books prior to publication. Milton was against that law.

The framers of the US Constitution enshrined in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or the press.”

While “Freedom of the Press” is the “cornerstone of democracies throughout the world,” there are countless laws limiting the press.

A newspaper must be cautious when calling a person a “corrupt and useless politician who deserves to burn in hell”, even if it might be true. To protect the state, it is against the law to write a call for the armed overthrow of the government. In the interest of “national security,” you can go to jail for exposing how the government is breaking the law. Ask Julian Assange about that.

However, each of these examples comes down to finding a balance between the “freedom” and the responsibility to exercise that freedom. We do not let a child have the freedom to cross the street alone until he learns all the responsibilities to do that safely.

Further, and perhaps because of the freedom-limiting laws, the press has often behaved in a manner of “it’s not a crime if you don’t get caught.”

Maybe because of that attitude, the press has lost almost all credibility with the people. The Digital News Report 2021 was prepared by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the University of Oxford. In the “bastion of the free press”—the US— amazingly, only 29 percent of the people “trust in news overall.” From television network news through the major newspapers— New York Times and Washington Post—none of them have a trust rating of even 50 percent.

The founder of the Giordano clothing brand, Jimmy Lai, has been a thorn in Beijing’s neck since he started his tabloid newspaper—apple Daily—in 1995. Under the new national security law, the government has forced the newspaper to close, and Lai is in jail.

While there has been a global outcry, will the Chinese government prove that “might makes right”?

Last week, “in a letter to President Biden, Sen. Pat Toomey (Rpennsylvania), ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, (D-maryland), a committee member, wrote that the recently passed Hong Kong Autonomy Act (June 2020 and signed by Donald Trump) requires the US Secretary of State to identify and take action against any foreign person or foreign businesses “materially contributing” to the “inability of the people of Hong Kong to enjoy the freedom of assembly, speech, press, or independent rule of law.” The law requires “mandatory sanctions” on those identified to Congress as suppressing these freedoms in Hong Kong. On June 24th, the White House said, “It is a sad day for media freedom in Hong Kong. The United States will not waver in our support of people in Hong Kong.”

The law is clear. Beijing’s actions are clearer. Let’s see if once again the US “support” is all talk and no action.