Last Straw

Free­dom of speech is on the offensive.

What an idea, a new busi­ness model for Ice­land:

On Tues­day, the Icelandic par­lia­ment is expec­ted to intro­duce a meas­ure aimed at mak­ing the coun­try an inter­na­tional cen­ter for invest­ig­at­ive journ­al­ism pub­lish­ing, by passing the strongest com­bin­a­tion of source pro­tec­tion, free­dom of speech, and libel-tourism pre­ven­tion laws in the world.

Sup­port­ers of the pro­posal say the move would make Ice­land an “off­shore pub­lish­ing cen­ter” for free speech, ana­log­ous to the off­shore fin­an­cial havens that allow cor­por­a­tions to hide cap­ital from author­it­ies. Could global news organ­iz­a­tions with a home office in Reyk­javík soon be as com­mon as Delaware cor­por­a­tions or Cay­man Islands assets?

“This is a legis­lat­ive pack­age to cre­ate a haven for free­dom of expres­sion,” Icelandic mem­ber of par­lia­ment Birgitta Jóns­dót­tir con­firmed to me, say­ing that a pro­posal for com­pre­hens­ive media law reform will be filed in par­lia­ment on Tues­day, and that whistle-blowing spe­cial­ists Wikileaks has been involved in draft­ing it.