‘Americans denied right to free speech’

The US has eroded freedom of speech, moral values and human rights for the American people over the past decades, a political activist tells Press TV.

“[US President] Barack Obama came into office as a constitutional professor and we have seen him do more damage to our constitution than even George Bush did,” said Tighe Barry, an activist with the CODEPINK group.

The advocate further criticized Washington for manipulating the American public by denying them the information needed to make decisions in the political atmosphere.

“It is unfortunate because the people do need to have this information if they are going to make good decisions on what they want out of their foreign policy from their leaders,” said Barry.

Americans have known that their rights are being stolen but they do not want to know the extent of the loss of their freedoms, the activist added.

“They see it on their television sets. They see it in the way their leaders are composing themselves. They see it in the fact that every day you see different headlines of companies that have given up information to the government – your cell phones are now being tapped, we are being watched around the globe, our passports have special chips in them,” said Barry.

He went on to condemn the United States for failing to follow the principles of ‘freedom of speech’ in its foreign policy regarding censorship of Iranian media.

The United States imposed fresh sanctions last month on Iran that include bans on the country’s media despite Washington’s claims of protecting freedom of speech.

“As a matter of fact, we are seeing that the United States and its European and NATO allies seem to be putting pressure around the world to pigeonhole countries such as Iran, Russia and other ones that are not in the sphere of influence of the United States and the European NATO countries,” Barry concluded.