Solzhenitsyn: One Book That Shook The World
How much impact can one book have? If that book is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago," quite a bit. When it was published in the West in 1973, Solzhenitsyn's most famous work reverberated loudly on both sides of the Atlantic. U.S. forces were withdrawing from Vietnam. Detente and peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union were in vogue.

Free Press Remains Elusive In Ex-Soviet States
It's been more than 15 years since the fall of the Iron Curtain, and several states that once were firmly in the Soviet sphere of influence are now members of the European Union and NATO. But people living in many of the former Soviet republics still face challenges, including getting access to the news that's taken for granted in the West.

Personal Freedoms and the Internet
Ron Paul
The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren’t infringing on their rights. Freedom to make bad decisions is inherent in the freedom to make good ones.

US Web-Based Companies’ Foreign Operations Probed
Global Internet use continues to expand, with the highest growth rates in countries like China that restrict their citizens' access to the Web. U.S. lawmakers are pressing American Internet-related companies to take stronger steps to fight Web censorship by foreign governments, and have crafted legislation to that end.

French Court Overturns Libel Verdict In Al-Dura Case
A French appeals court on Wednesday ruled that media watchdog Philippe Karsenty did not libel France 2 TV and its Jerusalem correspondent Charles Enderlin when he accused them of ‘staging’ the dramatic video footage of 12-year old Mohammed al-Dura apparently dying in his father’s arms at a flashpoint junction in Gaza in September 2000.

US Official Affirms Need for International Broadcasting
The top official for U.S. government international broadcasting says threats to press freedom around the world are boosting the need for accurate, objective transnational news sources. James Glassman is chairman of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, which overseas the Voice of America and more than half a dozen other U.S. international broadcasting agencies.

Anti-war Rhetoric: A Work In Progress
Jon Kyl
Writing for the Weekly Standard, American Enterprise Institute scholar Frederick Kagan recently examined how anti-war leaders have been forced to change their rhetoric in response to the continuing stream of positive developments in Iraq. Kagan correctly observed that the initial criticisms -- "the surge has failed, Iraqis will never reconcile, Iraqi troops won't fight, violence won't fall or, if it does, it won’t stay down -- have fallen by the wayside as they have been visibly disproven one by one."

New Report Finds Global Media Freedom Down in 2007
The U.S.-based organization Freedom House says media freedom declined in many parts of the world last year. The group's annual study of reporters' freedom says 42 percent of the world's people live in countries without basic freedom of the media. The report is titled A Year of Global Decline. Freedom House Executive Director Jennifer Windsor says that decline continued a six-year trend, and setbacks in media freedom outnumbered advances two-to-one.

Decency Over The Airwaves Is A Public Good
Joe Pitts
The Supreme Court recently announced it will accept a case regarding the government’s ability to ban so-called "fleeting expletives." The term, a euphemism used by the broadcast networks, describes accidental uses of words that have been deemed inappropriate for public airwaves. The case in question is FCC vs. Fox Television Stations.

How Digital TV Will Affect You
Jon Kyl
During the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina, there were massive breakdowns in the communication networks of our first responders. The communications equipment used by first responders had to compete with the same analog airwaves used by broadcast television. Subsequently, as part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, Congress mandated that free local broadcast television stations turn off their analog channels by February 17, 2009, and transition all broadcasts into digital television, also known as DTV.

Six Companies to Build High-Speed Cable Under Pacific Ocean
A group of six international companies has announced plans to build an ultra-high speed, undersea, fiber-optic cable under the Pacific Ocean, between Japan and the United States. The project is meant to improve Internet and other telecommunication traffic between the U.S. and Asia, and comes as several other companies have begun similar ventures.

Microsoft Makes $44.6 Billion Offer for Yahoo
Microsoft has offered to pay nearly $45 billion to buy Yahoo, the Internet search engine. The software giant's bid is a challenge to Google, which dominates the online advertising market. Microsoft made a surprise offer of $31 a share for Yahoo stock late Thursday, and Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said during a conference call with reporters Friday the potential alliance would help web users, advertisers, and the owners of online websites.

Foreign Reporters in China Face Official Interference
Foreign journalists in China say they continue to face official interference, despite new rules relaxing media restrictions ahead of the Summer Olympics. The Beijing-based Foreign Correspondents Club of China Tuesday said it had recorded more than 180 incidents of interference, including beatings and intimidation, in 2007.