Introduction

Abstract

Freedom of speech is generally viewed as a basic right in the United States today. A broad interpretation of this concept has been — and continues to be — a distinctive part of American political culture, or indeed its most distinctive part. Freedom of speech and of the press brings with it many benefits to those living in countries that enjoy it,1 for these privileges entail openness and accountability in public life, likewise distinctive features of the American political system. These features have also played a role beyond America’s borders in other countries. To illustrate this point, consider this extract written by the well-known political columnist Bernard Levin writing in the London Times as recently as 1991: that splendid organization, the Campaign for Freedom of Information, has just revealed disturbing facts about the tests for pollution from pharmaceutical plants in Britain — a matter, surely, that potentially concerns us all. Not so; the Campaign’s revelation is prohibited on pain of two years’ imprisonment. But the Campaign’s leaders will not go to chokey; they got the information from the United States’ Freedom of Information Act, not from Britain. Americans, you see, are trusted by their government; we are not fit to know whether we are going to be poisoned. The Campaign has revealed a wide range of such British information garnered from America; this month’s broadsheet is devoted to the subject, and readers will begin to think that they are hallucinating, so ridiculous and so scandalous are the things Americans can tell us that we cannot be told by our own governors. (Levin 1991, 14) KeywordsUnited States ConstitutionAmerican RepublicPresent BookFederalist NewspaperPoliteness TheoryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.