The US government is becoming increasingly opposed to individual freedom (see: the DEA, the TSA, the NSA, its response to Wikileaks, its incarceration rates, its use of torture, etc, etc, etc). I'm glad there are still people like Jacob who will put up a fight against these infringements. So many people choose the path of least short-term resistance.
Exactly why I'm leaving as soon as I can secure a residency permit in my country of choice. While every country has its problems and there's no utopia, I'd rather live in a place that has no illusions about the realities of its flaws and rights.
You can't fix something if you don't even realize there's a problem.
Germany. My girlfriend lives there, and besides being the powerhouse economy of the Eurozone at the moment, they seem to have more or less successfully blended a highly successful capitalist economy with realistic and humane social initiatives. To broadly generalize, the people here have a strong work ethic, are highly educated by average US standards, and take pride in what they do. They have a strong outdoors tradition and have highly progressive (again, by US standards) green-living initiatives.
While I'm not yet that well educated in Germany politics and policies, my initial vague impression is that while they're not as big on certain civil rights as people ostensibly are in the States (open government censorship and sometimes discriminatory hiring practices, for example), neither do they have any illusions about those policies. If you do cross the law, punishments appear reasonable--not $3 million and a lifetime of bankruptcy and lawyers if you share 5 songs on Kazaa.
Lots of other countries like to poke fun and point out the flaws in many of Germany's policies, and they certainly may be right, but Germany as viewed from the lens of a self-employed American engineer unable to get even basic health insurance is, at times, seemingly a progressive paradise.
Pre-existing conditions. I discussed this in a different thread long ago, but the long and short of it is that while I may qualify for a "car-crash emergency" type plan, it currently makes more financial sense for me to simply declare medical bankruptcy in case of emergency and pay small incidentals out of pocket than than pay a high premium/deductible on a plan that won't pay out unless I need tens/hundreds of thousands in care. Not to mention the risk of rescission. Meanwhile the COBRA payment from my last "real-job" employer was in the range of $400/month, which was not affordable for me.
It has been opposed to individual freedom since it put down the Whiskey Rebellion. If people cared about personal freedom George Washington would have been hung for treason.
The history of the Federalist party and of the Alien and Sedition Acts would be a good starting point. And, as TruthElixirX said, the Whiskey Rebellion.
For bonus points, be sure to pay attention to the American political response to the French Revolution and the XYZ affair, and to the relationship early America had with Britain[1].
Note: George Washington himself didn't belong to any political party (and he has famously spoken out against their existence). But, a lot of his policies were aligned with the Federalist party ideals.
1. If the words "Special Relationship" don't mean much to you, thats another fun topic to explore — and this is where it all started. But that's only marginally related to the question you asked.
I'm not really sure what to tell you. In my ideal world the Whiskey Rebellion succeeded. George Washington was hung for treason. The Articles of Confederation were not replaced through the Constitutional Coup.
Slavery becomes out competed by the market and in areas where it is not out competed guerrilla armies of abolitionists attack plantations/slave owners in the night and smuggle out their newly freed comrades.
Amazing how far we've come, eh? Hard for me to reconcile the fact that I have to put US-based communications in the same mental bucket as China-based communications.
The headline is a bit sensationalistic, if arguably accurate.
Edit for the downvoters: before it was modified, the headline read something to the effect of "US Government invades jacob Applebaum's privacy in continuing Wikileaks witch hunt".
I'm always suspicious of people who put conveying their emotional reaction to a story above getting the facts across. You see it on reddit all the time, and submitters hide behind the very justification you just gave. In the end, it lowers overall quality.
Good journalism is about more than simply truth. It's about professionalism and the appearance of such. Similarly, on HN I don't want to be browbeaten by people's moral judgements on any given issue. Give me the facts and I'll make my own judgements.
I happen to agree that the USG's actions against Wikileaks supporters are, if not extralegal, then certainly not in keeping with the ideals the US justice system is based on. That does not, however, mean that having headlines like that improves my experience on HN.
