Forty Percent of Humanity Does Not Have a Free Press

#tcot
...So sez CNS News.

Despite burgeoning information technologies including the Internet and digital wireless communications devices, more than 40 percent of the global population lives under regimes that do not allow freedom of the press.

In fact, a majority of people live in countries that either do not have a free press or have an only partially free press--and the situation is getting worse, according to a study by Freedom House, an organization that promotes democracy around the world.

But at least we have the First Amendment here in America, right? Hold onto your knickers, Obama's buddies in Congress are trying to fix that. From Volokh via IrishSpY:

Federal Felony To Use Blogs, the Web, Etc. To Cause Substantial Emotional Distress Through "Severe, Repeated, and Hostile" Speech?

That's what a House of Representatives bill, proposed by Rep. Linda T. Sanchez and 14 others, would do. Here's the relevant text:

Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both....

["Communication"] means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user's choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; ...

["Electronic means"] means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.

They couldn't get the ill-named "Fairness Doctrine" passed so I guess they have to shut us up somehow. See, this is why we have the Second Amendment... To enforce our First Amendment. At some point they're gonna make us go all Leonidas on 'em.

MOLON LABE!