Congress Adds Bloggers To Press Protections

Post by **faceless** » Sat May 12, 2007 1:45 pm

We all know that governments are corrupt though - it's not exactly news is it?

Mandy · Post by **Mandy** » Sat May 12, 2007 1:47 pm

faceless wrote:We all know that governments are corrupt though - it's not exactly news is it?

I agree. Governments being honest WOULD BE news.

Post by **Skylace** » Sat May 12, 2007 3:05 pm

All this new law does is give the same rights to bloggers that other journalist have not to be forced to reveal their sources. Like Woodward and Bernstein with Deep Throat. It is allowing bloggers to be protected the same way they are. I don't see what it has to do with bombings anywhere in the world. It's just extended a law to cover more people.

major.tom · Post by **major.tom** » Sat May 12, 2007 5:55 pm

Mandy wrote:I hate to be the one who is disagreeing. If you are not an America. but passing through American territory, then US laws apply. Therefore if you were extradited to US (as UK is very willing to do), you would be protected by these laws.

US laws applies to all people once they are on US controlled territory (including Guantanamo).

The US likes to apply "extra-territoriality", i.e. they have a tendency to extend their law to other countries (e.g. via free-trade / or bilaterial agreements).

I agree that U.S. law *should* apply on U.S. controlled territory, but this is not what happens in practice. Note that (to my knowledge) there are no Americans held at Guantanamo. And the "trials" set to take place are not criminal trials based on U.S. law but closed military hearings.

In the case of Maher Arar, he was only traveling through a U.S. airport on his way home to Canada. But U.S. law did not protect him. He was told quite explicitly that they could do what they wanted with him because he was not American.

My emphasis was on the difference between the letter and application of the law.

Mandy · Post by **Mandy** » Sat May 12, 2007 6:05 pm

major.tom, Thanks for the clarification. In that case, I do agree with you. Any non-American trying to correctly use US law against a US citizen can forget it. The US justice system is, to borrow a phrase, institutionally racist.

e.g. Maher Arar tried to sue the US government in US court {since US laws did apply to him, irrespective of what he was told}, but the US government claimed "national security" exemption to disclosing material facts. You can call this selective enforcement, or selective us of the "I can do anything wild card by the US government"