When ES leaked his info to the Guardian people, they could still (2013) use the Guardian's US base to publish, protected by the US' stronger freedom of speech laws. Now, in 2025, if the same were to happen again, I'm not sure that would work quite the same way, with Trump aggressively taking American citizens' rights away.
Maybe The Guardian should open a branch in Sealand...
It was David Graeber that said we should be wary of places like The Guardian. They are a wolf in sheeps clothing. Used a lot of the more liberal momentum of the early 2010s combined with promoting some of the more left leaning writters to gain a fair bit of clout. But underneath, they will conform to the power structures if it comes down to survival. Alas, they nay not be a Sealand edition although that would be neat.
This was made really obvious since the Gaza genocide began, the guardian was pushing propaganda really hard like everybody else, but now public opinion has shifted enough to the point that continued total denial of reality would cost the guardian more credibility so there was a noticable shift in the way they talk about it now. This way they can preserve some credibility for the next time they need to push propaganda on other fronts.
in the US the NYT is similar, they will sometimes allow stuff get published to manufacture credibility for when they actually need it. Like see the Iraq war for example.
No American citizens’ rights have been taken away or can be taken away by a President.
We have whistleblowers and leakers from the administration itself on a literal weekly basis, our own Department of State actively funds Signal and Tor, our media has been heavily criticizing Trump and his allies for years. A couple organizations got hit with lawsuits for publishing misinformation or skirting campaign law, but that’s about it.
They tried to make flag burning illegal - which is illegal in Mexico, most of South America, all of Asia, and most of Europe - and it was shot down almost immediately as even that comes under 1st amendment rights.
Please don’t lump us into the same bucket as the UK. We may have a sharply divided electorate but we don’t have a failing state!
sorry but we are not like Europe, yes the US is backsliding but the notion that the Guardian would be blocked from publishing any article is absurd on face