In article , Terry and Tracey <foxcroft@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>>Woah, are you serious? Do people in Australia run the risk of going to
>>jail, for instance, if they say something against their government?
>>What do you mean when you say you don't have freedom of speech?
>>When you say that, I think of China, where every computer user is
>>required to register his/her modem with the government.
>>
>>John
>>Camtech
>
>
>Theoretically, yes (or so i've been told by a lawyer friend). Practically
>no, as all Australian governments pride themselves on adhering to UN
>charters. So they wouldn't try it.
>
>Well, sort of. In the US it is clear cut. Our law stems from UK common law
>and is more vague. The government says things against the government, so
>this is not an issue.
>
>The legal right to freedom of speech is not enshrined in law. But it is so
>muddy that effectively it is.
>
>It works well, as nobody uses their freedoms to abuse too much (sory if I
>generalise the US here, but I only know what I see on the idiot box).
>
>Foxy
>
I gather its much the same currently in Australia as in the UK - there
is freedom of speech, but not freedom of information. Whereas in the US
the government has to prove that information is in the interests of
national security for it to be witheld from the general public, here the
assumption is that the information is of national security and it is the
responsibility of the person seeking the information to prove that it is
not - sorta Catch 22. We have an Official Secrets Act which everyone
working on anything which could be of national security - eg. servicemen
and defence workers, civil servants etc. must sign to acknowledge that
they have read and understood it. However, the Act itself contains a
paragraph which covers those who have not read the Act itself but may
come into contact with secure information. So you can be prosecuted
under the Official Secrets Act even if you have never read the Act or
signed to acknowledge understanding it! Where this becomes relevant to
freedom of speech is that you can be prosecuted for revealing
information verbally that would be covered by the Official Secrets Act -
and that includes ridiculous things like the routing between telephone
exchanges anywhere in the country or even the telephone directory of any
government establishment - even a post office!
The main other practical difference between the US and the rest of the
world concerns the libel laws. Although the concept of libel in the US
is evolved from the British laws of libel, a significant restriction was
instituted by the US Supreme Court in 1964 under the terms of the 1st
Ammendment and subsequently endorsed and extended in 1988 which means
that in order to libel a public figure in the US, actual malice -
whether physical, financial or mental, must be proven. That is not a
requirement in the UK or, AFAIK, Australia or Canada.
Thus you can say, and newspaper editors can choose to print, that
President Clinton is a sexual predator with total protection of the laws
of the US since it would be almost impossible to prove malice whether
true or not. However if I made exactly the same statements about Tony
Blair I would fall foul of the libel laws and open myself to
prosecution, requiring me to prove beyond reasonable doubt that my
statement was justified. Similarly, no newspaper editor would be
prepared to quote me - not even downmarket tabloids - since they would
risk prosecution for slander.
It is interesting that this modification of the British libel and
slander legislation under the US 1st Ammendment only apples to 'public
figures' which have been defined by legislation - for the average Joe
Bloggs on the street the libel laws are exactly the same in the US as in
the UK - making a defamatory statement is sufficient to support a libel
action, actual malice does not need to be proven. Strange that your
freedom of speech does not treat everyone equal under the eyes of the
law. The more you become a public figure in the US, the more you must
tolerate defamatory criticism.
This particular issue of malice meant that the recent libel action taken
by Richard Branson, the Virgin Group CEO, against GTECH over their
offers of bribery whilst bidding to operate the UK National Lottery
could not come to the courts in the US even if the offence had occurred
there, but was successfully prosecuted under the laws of the UK. At the
other extreme, for years we had a media tycoon known colloquially as
'The Bouncing Czech' - Robert Maxwell. Although he has subsequently
been proven guilty of many financial misdemeanors he could not be
accused publicly of these crimes during his life because he managed to
conceal the evidence - thus successfully prosecuting many libel actions
against him. The 'winnings' from these court cases were so significant
that they even slowed the collapse of his media empire. At the time of
his death nobody would say or print a defamatory word against him for
fear of losing a multi-million pound libel action. It is questionable
whether Maxwell could have successfully fought and won his libel actions
in the US, since he would have had to provide much more evidence of
malicious intent.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)
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