Below is today’s column in the Sunday
Washington Post. The
column addresses how the continued rollbacks on civil liberties in the
United States conflicts with the view of the country as the land of the
free. If we are going to adopt Chinese legal principles, we should at
least have the integrity to adopt one Chinese proverb: “The beginning of
wisdom is to call things by their right names.” We seem as a country
to be in denial as to the implications of these laws and policies. Whether we are viewed as a free country with authoritarian inclinations
or an authoritarian nation with free aspirations (or some other hybrid
definition), we are clearly not what we once were. [Update: in addition
to the column below, a
later column in the Washington Post explores more closely the loss of free speech rights in the West].
Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights
in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and
regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for
denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been
taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been
condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.