13 Oct 2009 | Uncategorized
For Silicon Valley’s high-tech companies, finding the Next Big Thing is what matters most. When a Google executive came to London on 12 October, he delivered a speech at an apt venue: Policy Exchange, the favourite think thank of the party tipped to form Britain’s next government.
David Drummond, the 46-year-old American lawyer who serves as Google’s chief legal advisor, spoke about the ways in which Google has tried to ensure unfettered internet access by users worldwide.
But Google has also complied with requests from China and other countries to block websites, a practice seemingly at odds with its corporate motto, “Do no harm.” Drummond argued that criticism of Google’s policy in these areas has overlooked the larger global issue: increasingly repressive internet legislation in many of the 150 countries where the company operates.
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8 Oct 2009 | News and features
The UN Human Rights Council has passed a resolution condemning “stereotyping of religion”. It’s a move that flouts freedom of expression – and it was sponsored by the United States. Roy W Brown reports
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5 Oct 2009 | Uncategorized
This is a guest post by Mark Stephens
The new Supreme Court, in its first ruling on an issue of law, has decided that open justice requires the naming of Mohammed al Ghabra, whom the lower courts had protected by anonymity orders. In the first contested issue before the new court, Mr Geoffrey Robertson QC told the judges on behalf of the media “[Y]our first term docket reads like alphabet soup”, referring to the number of appellants referred to only by letters of the alphabet, because they had been granted “pseudonym orders” by lower courts.
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2 Oct 2009 | Uncategorized
In this morning’s Times, Gomorrah author Roberto Saviano, who has been in hiding since writing his best-selling expose of Neopolitan organised crime, decries the increasingly gangsterish tactics of the Italian government in dealing with its critics:
Anyone in Italy today who criticises the Government or the Prime Minister knows what to expect in return — not a contrary opinion, but a campaign aimed at discrediting him.
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Tomorrow a large demonstration promoted by the Italian National Press Federation is being held in Rome — a strange protest for a democratic state. Never before has the press had to demonstrate to safeguard its own freedom in Europe. Italy looks more and more like an anomaly in the heart of Western Europe.
Obviously, Italy cannot be compared with China, Cuba, Burma or Iran. For us to demonstrate in defence of freedom of expression means to demand to be allowed to carry out one’s work without being personally attacked. It means denouncing an all-encompassing climate of menace.
As Saviano says, it’s astounding that this happens in the European Union in 2009. You can read more about the situation in Index on Censorship’s report here.
Hat tip: Nick Cohen
