Consortium News’ reporting has stood out since the 2012 arbitrary detention and later imprisonment of Julian Assange; the U.S. using social media firms to curb speech after 2016; and the vast crackdown against criticism of Israel in Gaza.
First Amendment slab in Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia. (Kyle Dickson, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
CN at 30
It is no longer hyperbole or even controversial to say there is a crisis of free speech in Western nations, which still consider themselves democracies. Their leaders say they’re ready to go to war to defend such rights, yet they are being destroyed from within.
The norm in history around the world has been suppression of speech, with rare periods of exceptions. It’s been that way too for most of European and U.S. history. The fight for free speech was one of the reasons American colonists rebelled against Britain for their independence against the tyranny of monarchies.
But in only the second U.S. presidential administration, John Adams imposed the Alien and Sedition Act on the new country in 1798, just seven years after the First Amendment came into force. It made it illegal to print “false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States.” About two dozen editors and publishes were prosecuted for criticizing Adams and the Federalist Party.
In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson got a new Sedition Act passed, a two-paragraph amendment to the Espionage Act that was specifically aimed at Americans who insulted the U.S. government, military or flag and tried to criticize the draft, military industry or sale of war bonds. Thousands were arrested for their speech. Censorship during the mania of the 1950s McCarthyite anti-communist era was rampant.
It has unfortunately returned in our own day. The latest round of suppression of free speech and media began with the imprisonment of Julian Assange, merely for what he published. Then the U.S. government got hold of Twitter and Facebook and told them whose speech to shut down. Israel’s Gaza atrocities the past two years have unleashed a string of court cases against journalists and activists to stop them from criticizing the Israeli government.
Since its founding 30 years ago, Consortium News has been on top of this story, especially its coverage of the Assange case and the suppression of speech critical of Israel in the midst of a genocide. It is perhaps the most important story that we cover. If you think it is vital that we continue to do so, please make a generous donation today to Consortium News‘ 30th Anniversary Fund Drive. Thank you.
Joe Lauria is the editor-in-chief of Consortium News.
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The more the criticism of the genocide of Palestinian men, women and children is called anti-semitism, the more you create REAL and actual anti-semitism in the world. Remember that Palestinians are semites, too.