Many small nations add to their revenue by offering preferential regulatory environments for businesses of various kinds. Think the Swiss and banking or the Cayman Islands and money laundering. Iceland is seeking to become the best place in the world to be an investigative journalist. Nieman Journalism Lab has the details:
Jónsdóttir explained that the proposal does not contain final legislation, but would instruct the government to create a package of laws that enhance journalistic freedoms in specific ways. According to an email from Assange (which was then leaked, ironically enough) the amendments would cover source protection, whistleblower protection, immunity for ISPs and other carriers, freedom of information requests, and strong limits on prior restraint. They would also provide protection against libel judgements from other jurisdictions, much as the United States may soon do with the Free Speech Protection Act of 2009.
The new law has been developed with the assistance of Wikileaks. Very interesting stuff.
February 12, 2010 at 8:35 am
Very cool thought – it’s spun me into thinking what other examples can be adopted by individual countries and where that leads us (in a science fiction moment). Free love (wait – Sweden already has that one) Free democracy. Free liberty. Free politics. Free business, Free health care (wait- Europe and Canada have that already) I’ll have to get back to you.
February 12, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Holy crow — it’s Islands in the Net-style data havens!