Jimmy Wales: UK needs US-style first amendment to protect whistleblowers

[Semicolon]

Britain should introduce its own constitution with an enshrined right to freedom of speech similar to that of the US to ensure that whistleblowers can come forward, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has said.

He said that doing so would help prevent governments from cracking down on media organisations that wanted to publish potentially damaging stories.

"One of the big differences between the US and the UK is the first amendment, so the idea of smashing computers in the basement of the New York Times is basically inconceivable," he said, referring to the British government's demand that the Guardian destroy hard-drives used to store Edward Snowden's secret files.

"One of the important things about the US is that something like the first amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights is very difficult to change – whereas here, it's not so easy to construct something that's difficult to change. Parliament can ultimately change anything with a majority vote and that's that."

Wales was speaking to the Guardian on Saturday at a London summit marking the anniversary of the start of Snowden's revelations, which were first published in the Guardian and the Washington Post.

Saturday's day of action was billed as the biggest privacy event of 2014, with more than 500 people attending in east London.

The Wikipedia founder's call for a "British first amendment" echoed that of the Guardian's editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger, who was ordered to destroy the hard-drives by the government under threat of legal action.

Rusbridger said no right to free speech is enshrined in British law and said that he felt a "sense of foreboding, that something bad would happen" in the UK in reaction to the Guardian publishing Snowden's material.

He said he had no such concerns about the US government because of the protections afforded by that nation's constitution.

"By forcing the reporting out of the UK to the US, the British government lost any handle on this story at all. So, I hope the British government will think about that in the future," he said.

Wales, Rusbridger and a host of other speakers addressed a packed Shoreditch Town Hall on Saturday on the subject of privacy in the wake of Snowden's revelations of industrial-scale spying by the UK and US governments.

The event has been organised by the Guardian and the Don't Spy on Us Campaign, a coalition of privacy, free expression and digital rights organisations which is urging the UK government to end the mass surveillance of the web and mobile phone networks by the British eavesdropping centre, GCHQ.

Source

There's more of the article, but that gets the main point across.

[Jack]

http://www.intensitysquared.com/index.php/topic,22314.msg1039484/topicseen.html#msg1039484

[Semicolon]

http://www.intensitysquared.com/index.php/topic,22314.msg1039484/topicseen.html#msg1039484

They can't take ours; they need their own.

Perhaps they'll copy it.

[Jack]

Found the other article to be very interesting and foretelling, but in a way difficult to express without wearing my foil hat.

[Semicolon]

Found the other article to be very interesting and foretelling, but in a way difficult to express without wearing my foil hat.

Parliament has been steadily eroding human rights in the UK since before 9/11. With the talk about the fundamental structure of the UK that's been happening since the Scottish independence vote was announced, it doesn't surprise me that the topic would come up. I wonder if it will go anywhere.

[RageBeoulve]

U.S. style first amendment to protect whistleblowers.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAAAAAA aha he hum.

[Yuri Bezmenov]

The UK could use the whole bill of rights.

[Hannah]

Well I do not live in the UK and there for cannot comment on life there as far as the UK having a type of bill of rights...I will say that regardless of where one lives it seems the old sang proves true time and again 'absolute power corrupts absolutely' or collective power of an elite few I suppose could be added in that statement...

Each government has it's positive aspects and negative aspects...these days seems more negative then positive and fewer and fewer are 'fighting the good fight' as it were...

also political correctness bullying folks into a corner so they are scared to say what is on their minds is a bit much as well but that is another 

The way I see it, I myself as a citizen of where I am at do what I can as far as writing my representatives, (I've actually gotten back thank you cards from two of the three I wrote which surprised me) I think encouraging folks with hand written letters actually helps as I've found from personal experience because you never know how they will remember that positive word from you as well as some constructive tasteful criticism (which I put in all three)

They are from different walks of life, different parties etc...but it takes guts to do what any of them do, hello aging in office before and after yikes! 

On any side of the isle more then just talking needs to take place, action in a positive way a hey how are you doing and meaning it or the like...in this day and age that is so dark some light no matter how small helps we might never know how much but that is part of the beauty of it...