Civil Liberties

Since freedom of the press is the foundation that American news outlets are built on, we all know that the First Amendment is sacrosanct to this country’s journalists. However, there are a few situations that test the limits of this freedom, and one of these situations has been in the news recently. Though it traditionally falls under the protections of the First Amendment, photography occupies that ambivalent space where cameras can be wielded by both journalists and private citizens with potentially harmful intent. It’s the latter group that leads to conflict between law enforcement officials and camera-toting individuals and frames the debate over security and freedom of the press in the incongruous terms of the Second Amendment.

But in the modern information society, the camera is not a weapon; on the contrary, it’s increasingly the main tool of citizen journalists in their effort to spread information. The easiest way that an average person can contribute to the news ecosystem—one of the prime opportunities for civic engagement—might be to take just one picture. As we pointed out earlier this month, this is how citizen journalism first took off.

But not everyone is happy to let your average American snap photos in public areas, even if it is for the good of the community.

As John Paul Stevens retires from the Supreme Court after a long and distinguished career, it's worth remembering that he was a complicated and, in many respects, very admirable figure, and not just because of his legendary personal charm. Though considered the Court's leading liberal jurist, Stevens embraced a number of libertarian ideas.

Hours before dawn on one of the last days of October 2009, the deadliest month for American troops in Afghanistan since 2001, Eric Holder, attorney general of the United States, strode out of a C-17 cargo plane parked at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. President Barack Obama, having reversed the ban on media coverage of the arrival of war dead at Dover, trailed just behind. During the official military ceremony, the two friends stood in dark suits, silently saluting 18 servicemen, including three Drug Enforcement Agency officials claimed by the Afghan War days prior.

Google has threatened to pull out of China, while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was surprisingly blunt in her criticisms of that nation's online censorship. China, meanwhile, denies any involvement in the recent hack attempts, and said that any such accusation is “groundless and aims to denigrate China.”

As President Obama receives formal recommendations in the coming months on issues surrounding the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it is crucial that policymakers and the public have an accurate picture of the threat to the United States posed by those detainees already released.

Technology evangelists believe that Barack Obama has the potential to fundamentally alter communication between the presidency and the people. Wikis in the White House? Online public comments on legislation? A real-time two-way conversation between citizens and their elected officials?

For better or worse, however, nothing is as easy as it might seem. Federal regulations, First Amendment issues, and just plain common sense are going to slow -- and potentially stagnate -- technological innovation in Washington.

Come hear more about the book that Studs Terkel calls "revelatory and stunning"; that Anthony Lewis praises for providing "a dramatic glimpse of a dark American past"; that Publishers Weekly says "artfully weaves the personal and the political" in a way that "readers will find engaging on more than one level."

Few books have caused as big a stir as John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, when it was published in April 1939. By May, it was the nation’s number one bestseller, but in Kern County, California -- the Joads’ newfound home -- the book was burned publicly and banned from library shelves. Obscene in the Extreme tells the remarkable story behind this fit of censorship.

Who knew? The legalization of gay marriage might make Californians happier. At least that's what a new study based on surveys of 350,000 people in nearly 100 countries suggests.

No, the authors aren't gay activists, nor do they seem to be peddling any particular political agenda. But in their search to discover which countries are happier than others and why, these scholars -- led by University of Michigan political scientist Ronald Inglehart -- have stumbled on one pretty fundamental conclusion about what people want out of life: freedom.