Does the Labour Government's commitment to Freedom of Information mean the end of excessive secrecy in the UK? Why has Britain finally decided to join the many other countries that enjoy a "right to know"? This book places the UK debate over open government in its political context. Robertson argues that just as secrecy reflected the interests of the powerful, so too does freedom of information. This is a radical and challenging alternative to the conventional view that open government is concerned with empowering "the people".

In recent years, there has been an increase of public employees being fired for inappropriate behavior on social media. This research explores social media conduct of public employees that have been adjudicated through the federal and state court systems. The arguments of these cases are based upon the question of an employee's first amendment rights versus the rights of the employer to maintain a desired work environment. The research found that widespread negative publicity, disruption of close working relationships, inappropriate and offensive employees comments led to favorable outcomes for the public employers. In contrast, when an employee posts on social media while off-duty as a private citizen, the employer has not cited any disruption and the comments are not personal attacks against employers but have substantial public concerns led to positive outcomes for the public employee.

Focusing on freedom of speech, this text deals with the perennial problem of how a small country should react in the face of pressure threatening its sovereignty. Should it give way or resist? The author describes in detail how the Soviet Union operated both overtly and covertly in the propaganda war and discusses the reactions of the West, the United States, Great Britain, West Germany and Sweden.

The Soviet collapse of 1991 - the Great August liberation - demonstrated the total exhaustion of Marxist Leninist agitation and propaganda. It was no longer possible to live on slogans. The failure of Soviet agitprop is also the failure of Soviet censorship the latter being a unique institution in anti-thought. This volume analyzes the consequences of censorship, before tackling the media legislation of the Russian Federation and the dangers to the free flow of information emerging both within and outside the Russian Federation.

Despite commitments to free speech and the open exchange of ideas, colleges and universities have ignored recommendations by implementing hate speech codes designed to protect students from harassment. This text analyzes the issue and explores both sides of the debate.

The United States is founded upon the principles of freedom of religion, although it has been difficult at times to understand and apply those principles. Phillip Hammond argues that the Constitution assumes a radical religious liberty, which protects the convictions of individual Americans, whether or not those convictions are explicitly religious. This book is an excellent guide to the church-state debate of today, and deepens that discussion by examining the root cause of disagreement about what freedom of religion means in America.

Although Americans tend to take the concept and protection of free expression for granted, free press and free speech are at best only tentatively established in some nations of the world. Covering prehistoric times to mid-1998, this book provides a year-by-year report of the efforts to free the press throughout the world. Since the American concept of free speech came from England, the early chapters place a heavy emphasis on events in England, while later chapters include other nations throughout the world. Ingelhart provides a thorough overview of free press and free speech principles and the continuing effort to extend those freedoms almost everywhere.

These studies by a group of eminent academics and judges compare the different approaches of the British, European and American courts to the questions of free speech, which lie at the heart of much debate in constitutional law. The authors of these studies adopt opposing views, some favouring the pursuit of a US-inspired approach to protecting free speech, in the belief that the political culture of British society .would be enhanced if our courts were to fashion our common law in accordance with many First Amendment principles. Others, more sceptically, reject this embrace of US legal culture, offering distinctly "Ameri-sceptic" views and arguing for a solution based on common law principles and on the jurisprudence of the European courts.

The first comprehensive study of the contentious issue of the public's right to know in time of war or limited conflict. The book traces the uneasy relations between the military and a generally unprepared and gullible media, from the Crimea to the present day. It shows how the advent of nuclear warfare has outlawed the nationalistic wars of survival of the past, and freed the citizen from his age-old obligations in time of war, able to make up his or her own mind on the merits of the situation. It is here that the battle lies, in the struggle for public opinion as a necessary precursor to war. This book details how the military discovered the secret of media and public manipulation in the Falklands, tested it in Grenada, and refined it in Panama before deploying it in all its glory during the Gulf. This book is essential reading for every soldier and journalist, or any student of military history as it points the way to the future.

Here is an inside look at how a Congressional Committee, supported by the Nixon White House, sought to establish control over broadcast news by investigating editorial news judgment. Frank Stanton, legendary President of CBS, refused to produce outtakes from the award-winning documentary, The Selling of the Pentagon, subpoenaed by the Committee in an attempt to condemn the program and CBS. The Committee voted to hold Stanton and CBS in contempt, and the House of Representatives held a full debate on its power to investigate and control broadcast news. Had Stanton not taken up the fight he describes to gain First Amendment protection, broadcast news would have been shaped by Congressional hearings and intimidation. Will new electronic media publishers resist such government efforts on the Information Superhighway? Fighting for the First Amendment can serve as a model for that struggle. Finally Stanton's story is told in his own words in this extraordinary account of his fight to secure First Amendment freedom for the news media. This remarkable book examines the ongoing conflict between media and government and dismisses the theory that press regulation by a government agency is desirable. CBS's fight over The Selling of the Pentagon clearly illustrates how government interference can keep vital information from the public. Broadcast news history shows that press regulations are not benign-despite government claims-and once they are in place, neither great resources nor the urgent need for truth may fully remove them. As public opinion polls show increasing support for such regulations, Stanton's story serves as a timely reminder of the need for a press free of government interference as print, cable, broadcast and satellite news move onto the Information Superhighway.

The relationship between the media and government and the influence that relationship has on democracy and national development is explored in this book. The study provides a succinct descriptive review of scholarly research works on communication and its implications for freedom, democracy, and development. The book lists the most frequently cited works in political communication (specifically regarding media-government relationships and press-freedom issues) and development communication. Following a general introduction, Part One examines press-freedom issues and research worldwide, and Part Two presents the relevant literature on development communication issues and provides insights into why the concept is popular with the developing world's journalists. Students, scholars, and policymakers in political communication, development communication, and international development will find this an invaluable tool for their research endeavors.

This book brings together in a systematic manner three discrete areas of interest pertaining to refugees. Asylum is explored through studies on the evolution of legal instruments in Europe, the harmonisation process of European policies, and the broader spectrum of factors underpinning decisions on asylum. Reception and settlement of refugees are analysed through a comparative study of national programmes in France and Britain and in addition a survey of local authority policies. A typology for refugees is developed and tested by a comparison between Chilean and Vietnamese associations in France and Britain.

This book brings together in a systematic manner three discrete areas of interest pertaining to refugees. Asylum is explored through studies on the evolution of legal instruments in Europe, the harmonisation process of European policies, and the broader spectrum of factors underpinning decisions on asylum. Reception and settlement of refugees are analysed through a comparative study of national programmes in France and Britain and in addition a survey of local authority policies. A typology for refugees is developed and tested by a comparison between Chilean and Vietnamese associations in France and Britain.

Despite the end of the Cold War, America's national security apparatus for controlling information has remained in place. However, sex and secularism are emerging as the major targets of censorship. Federal decency standards have been imposed on art, the broadcast media, and the Internet. Virtually every major political issue of the 1990s (abortion, campaign finance, violence on TV, homosexuality, indecency on the Internet) has First Amendment implications, and all are included in this comprehensive encyclopedia. This work covers the full history of America's struggle for free expression, as well as the contemporary dynamics represented by pop figures like Frank Zappa, Howard Stern, and Danny Goldberg and politicians like Jesse Helms and Don Edwards. It goes beyond other academic works of its kind by recognizing the primacy of the mass media and the Internet in defining the modern contours of the First Amendment.

Tracing the battles between the repressors and proponents of free speech, this chronology overviews press and speech freedoms in the United States from 1619 through 1995. Beginning with the American Colonies, the volume covers the religious refugees and political dissidents who settled the Colonies and the press that heated up the struggle to rid America of the Crown. Although freedom of speech and the press became constitutional rights 15 years after the Declaration of Independence, these rights fared poorly until after World War II. This book traces the struggles, the press, and the contending views from 1760 to 1960 and the 35 years of commitment to freedom from 1960 to 1995. Arranged by year, the entries in the chronology include the views and comments of persons in favor of or opposed to freedom of speech, events that affected press freedoms, and technological changes that have had an impact.

Art is continuously subjected to insidious forms of censorship. This may be by the Church to guard against moral degeneration, by the State to promote a specific political agenda or by the art market, to elevate one artist above another. Now, and in the last century, artwork that touches on ethnic, religious, sexual, national or institutional sensitivities is liable to be destroyed or hidden away, ignored or side-lined. Drawing from new research into historical and contemporary case-studies, Censoring Art: Silencing the Artwork provides diverse ways of understanding the purpose and mechanisms of art censorship across distinct geopolitical and cultural contexts from Iran, Japan, and Uzbekistan to Britain, Ireland, Canada, Macedonia, Soviet Russia, and Cyprus. Its contributions uncover the impact of this silent control of the production and exhibition of art and consider how censorship has affected art practice and public perceptions of artworks.

Most people believe that our rights to privacy and free speech are inevitably in conflict. Courts all over the world have struggled with how to reconcile the two for over a century, and the rise of the Internet has made this problem more urgent. We live in an age of corporate and government surveillance of our lives. And our free speech culture has created an anything-goes environment on the web, filled with hurtful and harmful expression and data flows. In Intellectual Privacy, Neil Richards offers a solution that ensures that our ideas and values keep pace with our technologies. Because of the importance of free speech to open societies, he argues that when privacy and free speech truly conflict, free speech should almost always win. But in sharp contrast to conventional wisdom, Richards argues that speech and privacy are only rarely in conflict. True invasions of privacy like peeping toms or electronic surveillance should almost never be protected as "free speech." And critically, Richards shows how most of the law we enact to protect online privacy poses no serious burden to public debate, and how protecting the privacy of our data is not censorship. A timely and provocative book on a subject that affects us all, Intellectual Privacy will radically reshape the debate about privacy and free speech in our digital age.

How free are students and teachers to express unpopular ideas in public schools and universities? Not free enough, Joan DelFattore suggests. Wading without hesitation into some of the most contentious issues of our times, she investigates battles over a wide range of topics that have fractured school and university communities - homosexuality-themed children's books, research on race-based intelligence, the teaching of evolution, the regulation of hate speech, and more - and with her usual evenhanded approach offers insights supported by theory and by practical expertise. Two key questions arise: What ideas should schools and universities teach? And what rights do teachers and students have to disagree with those ideas? The answers are not the same for all schools as they are for public universities. But far from drawing a bright line between them, DelFattore suggests that we must consider public education as a whole to determine how, and how successfully, it deals with conflicting views. When expert opinion clashes with popular belief, which should prevail? How much independence should teachers have? How do we foster the cutting-edge research that makes America a world leader in higher education? What are the free-speech rights of students? This uniquely accessible and balanced discussion deserves the full attention of everyone concerned with academic goals and agendas in our schools.

WikiLeaks came to prominence in 2010 with the release of 251,287 top-secret State Department cables, which revealed to the world what the US government really thinks about national leaders, friendly dictators, and supposed allies. It brought to the surface the dark truths of crimes committed in our name: human rights violations, covert operations, and cover-ups. The WikiLeaks Files exposes the machinations of the United States as it imposes a new form of imperialism on the world, one founded on tactics from torture to military action, to trade deals and "soft power," in the perpetual pursuit of expanding influence. The book also includes an introduction by Julian Assange examining the ongoing debates about freedom of information, international surveillance, and justice. An introduction by Julian Assange-writing on the subject for the first time-exposes the ongoing debates about freedom of information, international surveillance, and justice.

While researching Russia's historical efforts to protect nature, Douglas Weiner unearthed unexpected findings: a trail of documents that raised fundamental questions about the Soviet political system. These surprising documents attested to the unlikely survival of a critical-minded, scientist-led movement through the Stalin years and beyond. It appeared that, within scientific societies, alternative visions of land use, resrouce exploitation, habitat protection, and development were sustained and even publicly advocated. In sharp contrast to known Soviet practices, these scientific societies prided themselves on their traditions of free elections, foreign contacts, and a pre-revolutionary heritage. Weiner portrays nature protection activists not as do-or-die resisters to the system, nor as inoffensive do-gooders. Rather, they took advantage of an unpoliced realm of speech and activity and of the patronage by middle-level Soviet officials to struggle for a softer path to development. In the process, they defended independent social and professional identities in the face of a system that sought to impose official models of behavior, ethics, and identity for all. Written in a lively style, this absorbing story tells for the first time how organized participation in nature protection provided an arena for affirming and perpetuating self-generated social identities in the USSR and preserving a counterculture whose legacy survives today.

The status of free speech and academic freedom in the nation's colleges and universities has become an explosive issue. Reports of disruptions and dis-invitations of speakers and a host of new speech-inhibiting policies instituted by campus bureaucracies are now commonplace. Critics claim that these actions and measures have smothered the open and honest discourse inside and outside of the classroom that is so necessary for a meaningful and vibrant education to take place. Others consider the fears of crisis overblown, discerning the harms as less extensive in the vast domain of higher education than critics acknowledge. Drawing on his extensive research, teaching, and practical experience as a free speech and academic freedom leader at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and nation-wide, Donald A. Downs portrays the university as an "intellectual polis" in which free and honest academic discourse should pervade the campus. His unique approach addresses the experiential, empirical, strategic, and philosophical dimensions at stake. Free Speech and Liberal Education: A Plea for Intellectual Diversity and Tolerance dissects the nature, extent, and causes of the speech suppression that exists, emphasizing the need for intellectual diversity and how repression often co-exists with counter-forces that need to be energized and mobilized in what Downs portrays as the "embattled" status of academic free speech; the character of the harms the new policies and actions pose to liberal education; broader "structural and societal threats to academic freedom; how to mobilize to protect campus freedom using resources inside and outside of the campus; and, most importantly, why robust free speech and academic freedom are so important to both liberal education and the prospects of liberal democracy.

Free Expression and Democracy takes on the assumption that limits on free expression will lead to authoritarianism or at least a weakening of democracy. That hypothesis is tested by an examination of issues involving expression and their treatment in countries included on The Economist's list of fully functioning democracies. Generally speaking, other countries allow prohibitions on hate speech, limits on third-party spending on elections, and the protection of children from media influences seen as harmful. Many ban Holocaust denial and the desecration of national symbols. Yet, these other countries all remain democratic, and most of those considered rank more highly than the United States on the democracy index. This book argues that while there may be other cultural values that call for more expansive protection of expression, that protection need not reach the level present in the United States in order to protect the democratic nature of a country.

"Liberty and the News" is Walter Lippman's classic account of how the press threatens democracy whenever it has an agenda other than the free flow of ideas. Arguing that there is a necessary connection between liberty and truth, Lippman excoriates the press, claiming that it exists primarily for its own purposes and agendas and only incidentally to promote the honest interplay of facts and ideas. In response, Lippman sought to imagine a better way of cultivating the news.

A brilliant essay on a persistent problem of American democracy, "Liberty and the News" is still powerfully relevant despite the development of countless news sources unimagined when Lippman first published it in 1920. The problems he identifies--the self-importance of the press, the corrosion of rumors and innuendo, and the spinning of the news by political powers--are still with us, and they still threaten liberty. By focusing on the direct and necessary connection between liberty and truth, Lippmann's work helps to clarify one of the most pressing predicaments of American democracy today.