Freedom of speech in western society: How much of it should be curtailed?

A core feature of western democracy is freedom of speech. People are able to express their views freely on any perceived issues affecting their community or country without any fear of intimidation or arrest. Government listens to these views and if necessary, tends to make adjustment to its policies to reflect the views. In other words freedom of speech serves as a machine of accountability for bringing people in power to account. However, there is a debate about whether the concept of freedom of speech in the West is too broad.

Freedom of speech requires us to be tolerant of other people’s views. Some people might share similar views to ours but others might not. The views of these people who cannot share our views might be extreme to ours and hard to tolerate but still we must respect the views for the sake of free speech. After all if we should deny individuals who do not share our views or have views similar to us the platform to express their views, the principle of free speech will be defeated.

Freedom of speech in the West distinguishes the region from other regions of the world. In most non western countries such as the Middle East freedom of speech is highly restricted. Governments censor almost everything that the media and people say in the public. People who ignore this censorship and express their true feelings on issues do so at their own peril. They can be arrested and locked up in prison where they will be tortured for a long period of time by government agents.

Following the recent terrorists attacks on westerners and western targets including the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby, a British Soldier, on a London street by Islamists some people are calling for some restrictions on freedom of speech enjoyed by all citizens. The British home secretary has responded to this call by announcing that the government is considering whether to introduce the controversial “Snooper’s Charter”, which can enable the security agents to have access to email communication and data information of every person living in Britain.

The assumption is that this limitation of freedom of speech or the Snooper’s Charter can enable the security agents to intercept dangerous communications by potential terrorists and thwart the evil plans. However, it is less convincing that terrorists with the ability to plan very sophisticated attacks will make themselves vulnerable to arrest and incarceration by using emails or internet to communicate their evil deeds. In fact terrorists are likely to have other means of communicating their evil deeds across to their followers other than communicate via email and internet.

If the West should curtail its freedom of speech for the sake of security, then it will become hard to distinguish between Western and non Western governments in terms of censorship. Consequently, Western governments will loose their high moral grounds over non western governments. Instead of curtailing freedom of speech Western governments should try and improve the ability of their security agents to detect and thwart terrorists’ plots before they come to fruition. This can be done by better monitoring of individuals with extreme views and sharing of intelligence between different governmental agencies.

In my view the current freedom of speech in the West is not too broad; It is adequate. I will sum up the importance of freedom of speech existing in the West by quoting the words of Medea Benjamin, an anti-war activist, who recently heckled (interrupted) president Obama during his speech on America use of drones on suspected terrorists: "I must say, I do really appreciate that I live in a country where if you interrupt the president you don't get beaten and tortured and thrown inside a prison for a year."