MON SEVEN

DAMASCUS (AP) — The lifting of economic sanctions onSyriawill allow the government to begin work on daunting tasks that include fighting corruption and bringing millions of refugees home, Hind Kabawat, the minister of social affairs and labor, told The Associated Press on Friday. Kabawat is the only woman and the only Christian in the 23-membercabinet formedin March to steer the country during a transitional period after the ouster of former PresidentBashar Assadin a rebel offensive in December. Her portfolio will be one of the most important as the country begins rebuilding after nearly 14 years of civil war. She saidmoves by the U.S. and the European Unionin the past week to at least temporarily lift most of the sanctions that had been imposed on Syria over decades will allow that work to get started. Before, she said, "we would talk, we would make plans, but nothing could happen on the ground because sanctions were holding everything up and restricting our work." With the lifting of sanctions they can now move to "implementation." One of the first programs the new government is planning to launch is "temporary schools" for the children of refugees and internally displaced people returning to their home areas. Kabawat said that it will take time for the easing of sanctions to show effects on the ground, particularly since unwinding some of the financial restrictions will involve complicated bureaucracy. "We are going step by step," she said. "We are not saying that anything is easy -- we have many challenges — but we can't be pessimistic. We need to be optimistic." The new government's vision is "that we don't want either food baskets or tents after five years," Kabawat said, referring to the country's dependence on humanitarian aid and many displacement camps. That may be an ambitious target, given that 90% of the country's population currently lives below the poverty line, according to theUnited Nations. Thecivil warthat began in 2011 also displaced half the country's pre-war population of 23 million people. The U.N.'s refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates that about half a million havereturned to Syriasince Assad was ousted. But the dire economic situation and battered infrastructure have also dissuaded many refugees from coming back. The widespread poverty also fed into a culture of public corruption that developed in the Assad era, including solicitation of bribes by public employees and shakedowns by security forces at checkpoints. Syria's new rulers have pledged to end the corruption, but they face an uphill battle. Public employees make salaries far below the cost of living, and the new government has so far been unable to make good on a promise to hike public sector wages by 400%. "How can I fight corruption if the monthly salary is $40 and that is not enough to buy food for 10 days?" Kabawat asked. Women and minorities The country's new rulers, led by PresidentAhmad al-Sharaa— the former head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, a Sunni Islamist insurgent group that spearheaded the offensive against Assad — have been under scrutiny by western countries over the treatment of Syrian women and religious minorities. In March, clashes between government security forces and pro-Assad armed groups spiraled into sectarian revenge attacks onmembers of the Alawite sectto which Assad belongs. Hundreds ofcivilians were killed. The government formed a committee to investigate the attacks, which has not yet reported its findings. Many also criticized the transitional government as giving only token representation to women and minorities. Apart from Kabawat, the cabinet includes only one member each from the Druze and Alawite sects and one Kurd. "Everywhere I travel… the first and last question is, 'What is the situation of the minorities?'" Kabawat said. "I can understand the worries of the West about the minorities, but they should also be worried about Syrian men and women as a whole." She said the international community's priority should be to help Syria to build its economy and avoid the country falling into "chaos." 'Rebuilding our institutions' Despite being the only woman in the cabinet, Kabawat said "now there is a greater opportunity for women" than under Assad and that "today there is no committee being formed that does not have women in it." "Syrian women have suffered a lot in these 14 years and worked in all areas," she said. "All Syrian men and women need to have a role in rebuilding our institutions." She called for those wary of al-Sharaa to give him a chance. While the West has warmed to the new president -- particularly after his recenthigh-profile meetingwith U.S.President Donald Trump— others have not forgotten that he fought against U.S. forces in Iraq after the invasion of 2003 or that his HTS group was formed as an offshoot of al-Qaida, although it later cut ties. "People used to call (Nelson) Mandela a terrorist, and then he became the first leader among those who freed South Africa, and after that suddenly he was no longer a terrorist," Kabawat said. She urged skeptics to "give us the same chance that you gave to South Africa."

For many European gays, the festive Eurovision Song Contest each May marks the unofficial kickoff to the global Pride season. As usual, there were soaring highlights and scandalous lowlights among the competing Eurovision nations at the 2025 edition of the contest in Basel, Switzerland, this month. But another country was on the lips of many queer jet-setters this year: the United States, with itsspate of new anti-transandanti-immigrant policiesthat are causing some LGBTQ travelers to reconsider their upcoming American itineraries. Several European countries, including Denmark, Finland and Germany, have issued official cautions for LGBTQ travelers visiting the U.S., particularly those with an "X" gender listed on their passport. Meanwhile, out of concerns for participant safety, Canada's leading LGBTQ rights group,Egale Canada, pulled out of participation in WorldPride DC, and theAfrican Human Rights Coalitionhas called for aboycottof this edition of the international Pride event, coordinated by InterPride and usually held every two years. "It doesn't feel right to at the moment," Karl Krause told NBC News at Eurovision in Basel, referring to travel to the U.S. Krause, who is German by birth, lives in Amsterdam with his Dutch partner, Daan Colijn, and together they are travel-focused content creators known to their followers asCouple of Men. In 2021, Lonely Planet awarded them its first Best in Travel LGBTIQ Storyteller Award, a nod to their work for the LGBTQ community. "As gay men traveling to the U.S., we are probably still the more privileged part of the community," Krause said. "But we had some interesting conversations recently in Bilbao with a trans person who was like, 'I cannot, I literally cannot travel to the U.S., because I have no idea how they would receive my diverse passport, if I would be put in detention or whatever. I have my little daughter — I'm not going to risk any of this.'" Krause said that was the moment he realized that while he and Colijn as gay men may not yet be feeling the full effects of the Trump administration's policies, they were already having an impact on other travelers within the LGBTQ community. "So how can we in good feeling promote this destination?" he asked. "How can I send a trans friend or nonbinary friend and try to inspire them to go to the U.S. when they are in what's supposed to be the best time of their year, to spend in a country where they don't feel safe?" Colijn added that he and Krause want to send their followers "somewhere where they are safe, where they feel welcome." "At the moment, of course a lot of people will still feel very, very welcome in the majority of America — a lot of places are still the same, or maybe even trying to do better. But we just want to be careful in what we are supporting," Colijn said. John Tanzella, president and CEO of the International LGBTQ+ Travel Association, orIGLTA, told NBC News that such concerns are commonplace this year. "We've heard from travelers feeling uncertain about visiting the U.S., especially trans and gender-diverse individuals," he said. "These decisions are often driven by concerns about safety, treatment at the border and access to affirming health care. Some have canceled their trips. Many others are still coming, but they're being more selective about where they go." Nicoló Manfredini, an Italian trans man living in Valencia, Spain, said he was recently able to enter the U.S. without incident thanks to having an "M" marker on his passport, but the government's anti-trans policies currently make America a place he would rather not visit again. "Originally I had planned to go to WorldPride, but not now," he said. Given the current environment in the U.S., Manfredini added, he said he would only travel to the U.S. if he had to do so for work. Even American gender-diverse people are adjusting their travel plans because of Trump administration policies, according toa studyreleased earlier this month by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. Of the more than 300 transgender, nonbinary and other gender-diverse people surveyed, 70% said they are less likely to go on vacation to U.S. states they view as less trans-affirming. Krause said that despite usually attending at least one and sometimes several U.S. Pride events every year, this year will be different. "We were actually planning to go to Washington, D.C., for WorldPride, but this is off the table for us … How safe can we be in Washington? Just saying that scares me a little bit," he said, noting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was particularly concerning. "I don't know what is going on there now and who is coming, and I don't feel safe with the idea that I'm going there and I'm walking and maybe there is a mob [coming] from whatever direction." Capital Pride Alliance, the organizers behind WorldPride DC, which started earlier this month and continues through June 8, did not respond to requests for comment from NBC News, but the event's websitedetails security protocolsand includes a passport advisory for transgender and nonbinary travelers. Sahand Miraminy, director of operations for Capital Pride Alliance,told The Washington Postthis week that security measures at WorldPride DC will include weapons screening at the entrance to the street festival June 7 and 8, which will also be fenced in. In addition to the local and federal "agency support that we have, we also hire private security and have many forms of safety measures and surveillance that we may not share at all times with the public," he said, "but there are certainly conversations that we're having with those agencies on a weekly basis." Organizers at NYC Pride, arguably the most globally popular of U.S. Pride events each year and held like most big cities during Pride Month in June, are also stepping up security plans for 2025. "NYC Pride has contracted a private firm with vast experience managing LGBTQIA+ events to lead on-site security," spokesperson Kevin Kilbride said. "Given the size and visibility of our events, NYC Pride is monitored and secured by municipal agencies at every level of government to protect our freedom of expression and ensure a safe space for our community." Tanzella said that since safety is unfortunately never guaranteed for the LGBTQ community, careful planning is more essential than ever for LGBTQ travelers coming to the U.S. this year. "Research destinations with strong reputations for inclusion and visible LGBTQ+ support," he advised. "Connect with local LGBTQ+ organizations for on-the-ground insights, stay informed about local laws and current events, and have a plan for accessing affirming health care if needed. Most importantly, prioritize places where you feel respected and supported." Cities and states with long-standing reputations for LGBTQ inclusivity are getting more attention, Tanzella added. "In this climate, a destination's visible commitment to inclusion through its policies, community engagement, and public support truly matters," he said. In October, the IGLTA will host its annual global convention in Palm Springs, California, a destination Colijn said he and Krause can and will enthusiastically visit. "We were there just last year, and we felt how amazing and welcome and how much old queer culture is there," he said. "So of course we want to go there, and we can fully tell people to go there. Unless of course we might get in trouble at the border." Krause, however, noted that he and Colijn still haven't booked their Palm Springs trip just yet, because they fear that under the Trump administration "everything can change overnight." "There is no long-term planning," he said. Kilbride said he understands the need global queer travelers feel to exhibit caution this year, but he said he believes Pride remains one of the most powerful tools in the collective struggle for equality. "We stand with the international LGBTIA+ community, particularly our trans and nonbinary siblings," he said. "But we also believe the fight for our community is more important now than ever. We need to show up big to make it clear: We're here, we're queer, and we're not going anywhere."

By Brad Heath, Jason Lange, Andy Sullivan, Grant Smith WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Elon Musk once famously wielded a chainsaw on stage in a theatrical demonstration of his effort to drastically cut U.S. federal spending under President Donald Trump. As he leaves government, official data shows he achieved something closer to a trim with scissors. In the four months since Musk's Department of Government Efficiency began slashing federal spending and staffing, a handful of the agencies he has targeted trimmed their combined spending by about $19 billion compared with the same period last year, according to U.S. Treasury Department summaries reviewed by Reuters. That is far below Musk's initial goal of $2 trillion in savings and amounts to about a half of 1% of total spending by the federal government. Musk said on Wednesday he is leaving the administration but that its cost-cutting work will "only strengthen over time." It remains to be seen, however, how enthusiastically Trump's cabinet secretaries will continue to downsize their departments. DOGE says it pulled the plug on more than 26,000 federal grants and contracts that are worth about $73 billion, while more than 260,000 government workers have been bought out, taken early retirement or been fired. But the DOGE tallies have been riddled with errors, according to reviews by numerous budget experts and media outlets, including Reuters. That has made them difficult to verify, and some of the announced cuts are not saving the government any money because judges have reversed or stalled them. That leaves the Treasury Department's daily reports on how much the government is spending as the clearest window into the scope of the administration's cost-cutting. The view they offer so far is modest: The government has spent about $250 billion more during the first months of Trump's administration than it did during the same period of time last year, a 10% increase. And even some parts of the government Trump has cut the most deeply are, for now at least, spending more money than they did last year. One big factor driving costs is largely outside Trump's immediate control: interest payments on the United States' growing pile of debt, which amount to about $1 in every $7 the federal government spends. Debt interest payments are up about 22% from a year ago. Spending on Social Security, the safety-net program for the elderly and disabled, totaled about $500 billion since Trump's inauguration, up 10% from a year earlier. To be sure, the view offered by the Treasury Department's daily reports is incomplete. Many of the cuts DOGE has made to the federal workforce, grants and contracting will reduce what the government will spend in the future but do not show up in its checkbook today. For example, while thousands of workers have taken buyouts, the government will continue to pay their wages until October. So far, the Labor Department has estimated there were only about 26,000 fewer people on federal payrolls in April than were on the books in January, after adjusting the figures for typical seasonal swings. Tallying savings from future cuts, however, is seldom straightforward. "It could be that in the future we never replace these workers and we save billions of dollars, or it could be that they come back and it's even more expensive than before," said Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Budget Lab at Yale, a nonpartisan budget analysis organization at Yale University. The White House declined to offer an explanation for DOGE's figures. Spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement that "DOGE is working at record speed to cut waste, fraud, and abuse, producing historic savings for the American people." Reuters estimated the administration's impact by tallying outlays at agencies that had been targeted for cuts and whose spending had dropped from the same time last year. Among the agencies hardest hit are the Department of Education, State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other independent agencies. Rachel Snyderman, an expert on fiscal policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said the spending declines at agencies could be reversed if the Trump administration doesn't get congressional approval to cancel outlays from this year's federal budget, as required by law. AN $11 BILLION EDUCATION CUT The most obvious sign that the Trump administration is making a dent in federal spending is in the Education Department, which Trump has ordered shut down. The administration cut the department's staff by about half in March. DOGE's website lists 311 Education Department grants and contracts it says it has eliminated for a savings of about $1.6 billion, though it is not clear how it arrived at those figures. Some cuts have not stuck. A federal judge in March ordered the administration to restore some of the grants it had cut, and another judge this month ordered it to rehire 1,400 workers. Still, the Education Department under Trump has spent close to $11 billion less than it did over the same period last year, the Treasury reports show, far more than what DOGE says it has cut. One reason could be that layoffs have made it harder for the government to process payments for special education and low-income schools. School districts that have sued over the cuts alleged that states were already experiencing slowdowns in receiving money. Another factor for the reduced outlays: The department has stopped handing out the $4.4 billion that remains to be distributed from the hundreds of billions of dollars approved in previous years to help schools weather the COVID-19 crisis. The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment. OTHER AREAS DOGE HAS CUT Other agencies targeted in Trump's overhaul are also starting to show declines in their spending compared with the same time last year. Spending is down about $350 million at the CDC and about $1 billion at the National Institutes of Health. The Trump administration has moved to slash spending across those agencies, cancelling grants and ending leases for office space. The Department of Health and Human Services has reported terminating close to 2,000 grants that planned to disperse more than $20 billion. Many of the grants were to boost labs that fight new infectious diseases, or to fund state mental health programs. Some $14 billion of the grant money had already been spent prior to the termination, with roughly $7 billion effectively frozen, according to a Reuters analysis of the government's tallies. The administration has effectively dismantled USAID, which handled most U.S. foreign assistance, firing nearly all of the agency's employees and cancelling most of its humanitarian aid and health programs, though federal courts have forced the government to continue making some payments. USAID spending is down about 40%, to about $4.6 billion, from last year. Spending at the State Department – where DOGE says it has cut nearly $1 billion in grants and contracts – is also down about 20% from 2024. WHY WE CAN'T KNOW MORE Measuring the impact of the administration's actions is difficult because many cuts will not yield savings for months or years even as spending elsewhere increases. Spending on federal employee salaries, for example, is up by more than $3 billion under Trump. Some of the grants and contracts DOGE cut were due to be paid out over several years, and many remain the subject of lawsuits that will determine whether they can be cut at all. DOGE says it has saved taxpayers $175 billion, but the details it has posted on its website, where it gives the only public accounting of those changes, add up to less than half of that figure. It says the figure includes workforce cuts, interest savings and other measures it has not itemized. It is also hard to know exactly how much the government would have spent if the administration had not started cutting. (Reporting by Brad Heath, Jason Lange and Andy Sullivan in Washington and Grant Smith in New York, Editing by Ross Colvin and Matthew Lewis)

People hold up signs during the Harvard Students for Freedom rally in support of international students at the Harvard University campus in Boston, Mass., on May 27, 2025. Credit - Rick Friedman—AFP/Getty Images "Economists don't like tariffs not only because of the tariff itself but because of the uncertainty it creates," Fangzhou Jiang, a Chinese student at Harvard Kennedy School and co-founder of higher education consulting firm Crimson Education, tells TIME. "It's the same situation." The uncertainty Jiang is dealing with is his education: while his student visa has so far not been affected, thechanging situationaround Harvard's enrollment authorization and now new restrictions on Chinese students have made it difficult to navigate decisions around things like housing for the next academic year. Secretary of State Marco RubiosaidWednesday the U.S. would start "aggressively" revoking Chinese student visas and "enhance scrutiny" of applications from mainland China and Hong Kong. Rubio gave sparse details on what exactly the criteria would be but said it would include "those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields." China on Thursday condemned the decision, calling it "discriminatory." "The U.S. decision … seriously hurts the lawful rights and interests of international students from China, and disrupts people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. China firmly opposes it and has protested to the U.S. over the decision,"saidChinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. "This politically motivated and discriminatory move exposes the U.S. hypocrisy over freedom and openness. It will further damage the image and reputation of the U.S. itself." The U.S. move comes at a time when the Trump Administration has imposedrestrictions on the sales of chip design softwareandsome jet engine partsto China, and soon after it warned that the sale of Huawei semiconductors "anywhere in the world" would violate U.S. export controls—prompting China tothreaten legal action. It's also come amid the Administration's war on U.S. colleges, which has included slashing federal funding for a number of universities and an attempt tobar Harvard University from enrolling international studentsover the school's alleged noncompliance with a list of demands. The decision was celebrated by some. Ashley Moody, a Republican Senator from Florida,postedon X, "the U.S. is no longer in the business of importing espionage." Moodyintroduceda bill in March to ban all Chinese students from the U.S. Others, however, condemned the move. "The wholesale revocation of student visas based on national origin—and without an investigation—is xenophobic and wrong," the Democratic-led Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucuspostedon X. "Turning these students away—many of whom simply wish to learn in a free and democratic society—is not just shortsighted but a betrayal of our values." This policy "doesn't come from nowhere," says David Weeks, co-founder and chief operating officer of Sunrise International, a consulting firm that advises overseas universities on recruiting Chinese students. "You have adverse policies tracing back all the way to" President Donald Trump's first term, Weeks says. In 2020, Trump's first-term Administration implemented Proclamation 10043, arestrictive visa policyon Chinese graduate students and researchers with ties to China's "military-civil" universities. Around 1,000 Chinese scholars had their visasrevokedunder the policy, which persisted under the Biden Administration. The new restrictions may appear more expansive, but it's "a lot of chest thumping," Weeks says, adding that without further details, it doesn't appear to be substantively different from what's been in place for the last five years. "It's almost domestic political posturing. There's folks in the State Department that may want to seem tough on China, but this idea of limiting visas for students pursuing critical fields is nothing new." The ambiguity around the new policy and other recent decisions has thrown some Chinese students into a precarious position. The main change is that the criteria has been expanded from alleged military ties to ties to the CCP—but in effect, Weeks says, this will be logistically difficult to implement. A huge number of Chinese citizens have ties to the CCP: the party boasts a membership ofaround 100 million members, and even if someone isn't a member, it's likely they can be linked through someone they know who is. But people join forreasons beyond direct political involvement. "To be a civil servant or work in a state enterprise, it's almost obligatory to be in the party," one membertoldAFP. "It's like a diploma. It opens doors." On top of that, "essentially every department of every Chinese university has a dual system of governance, where you've got the dean and you have the Communist Party Secretary," Weeks says. Students may have also joined the Communist Youth League at some point, but it's almost akin to joining the Boy Scouts, he adds. "The party is omnipresent in many Chinese universities," Weeks says, but that doesn't mean that students are actively politically involved. "The effort to try to disentangle and identify who has a party affiliation is practically extremely difficult." If it's about national security, Jiang says, then it "might not be the most effective move" to go after anyone with apparent affiliations with the CCP because "you would have targeted a whole bunch of people that have nothing to do with politics or with national security matters." "There's a possibility that students could be vindictively targeted, especially if they're at a university like Harvard that's picked a fight with the Administration," Weeks says. "There's certainly a risk that we could have a McCarthyist sort of sweep." Chinese students account for nearly a quarter—or more than 277,000—of all international students in the U.S., the second highest nationality behind Indian students, according to a2024 Open Doors report. Many of these students are "financially pretty self-sustaining," Weeks says, which can be a significant contribution to university revenue. Chinese students also tend to have strong backgrounds in STEM and are typically highly academically motivated, he adds. They can be "a critical lifeline for some programs." "There's just no market that is as big and as wealthy and as academically prepared as China," Weeks says. Right now, among Chinese students and their families, there's concern, Weeks says, but not yet panic. U.S. universities have long held a "tremendous amount of soft power," he adds. "In China, there's still a perception that certain other countries are easy, because they don't have as selective of admissions processes as the U.S. does, the degrees are shorter and thus less rigorous." Many U.S. universities, even non-elite ones, have a kind of brand recognition among Chinese employers, while job opportunities in large American cities are "unparalleled." Chinese families have also watched Trump's other policies go on rollercoasters, including imposing heavy tariffs on China and the rest of the world beforebacking out. "I think Chinese families are seeing that there's sometimes a lot of noise and bluster, then the final outcome is not ideal," says Weeks, "but it's certainly not apocalyptic either." Still, if punitive policies towards Chinese international students persist, students may turn to alternative destinations, experts say. Read More:These Asian Universities Are Seeking to Attract Harvard Transfers as Trump Targets International Students "Chinese parents view this environment as one of toxic uncertainty," Weeks says. "Chinese parents really gravitate towards the rule of law in a lot of these anglophone countries, so when they see that the rule of law in some places is under threat, that's deeply concerning to them." The Trump Administration's attitude towards Chinese students is a far cry from the counterpart view of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has for years advocated for more American students to come to China. Xi in 2023 launched an initiative to bring in 50,000 Americans for exchanges and studies over five years. Last year, 16,000 Americansparticipated. "There's recognition that when you don't have people-to-people exchanges, you lose an important bulwark against populist rhetoric on both sides," Weeks says. "China thinks that we need more, not less, exchange if we have disagreements." On Wednesday evening, the same day that Rubio announced the decision, Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng touted people-to-people exchanges as foundational to U.S.-China relations. "It is people-to-people ties that invigorate China-U.S. relations," he said at his embassy. "We warmly welcome all American friends to travel in China, shop in China, succeed in China and take part in Chinese modernisation. Come and see the country with your own eyes." Jiang says when he thinks of his peers, friends, and faculty members, he feels very welcome in the U.S. But these moves by the Administration have spotlighted rhetoric that makes him feel less accepted. Some experts say the Administration's decision will lead to an erosion of trust between the two countries, which could ultimately impact trade negotiations—a key priority for the Trump Administration. "This policy is an unfair treatment of Chinese citizens, which will intensify diplomatic tensions between China and the United States, undermining the easing atmosphere that had emerged following the Geneva talks," Sun Chenghao, a fellow at Tsinghua University's Centre for International Security and Strategy,toldtheSouth China Morning Post, referencing the agreement between the U.S. and China totemporarily lower tariffs. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a ThursdayFox News interviewthat trade talks with China are "a bit stalled" and pushed for a call between Trump and Xi—who last spoke in January ahead of Trump's inauguration. "I think China has made it clear that it would like to disentangle security disagreements and trade … from people-to-people exchanges," Weeks says. Though he doesn't think the Trump Administration's education policies will ultimately undermine trade negotiations, he adds: "I don't know if Trump or Rubio actually care that much about which student from what province is studying at what U.S. university, but I do think that they see international students unfortunately not as humans, but as bargaining chips." Contact usatletters@time.com.

Political activists occasionally propose a new constitutional convention, which would gather delegates from the states to craft amendments to the nation's founding document. It's a long and convoluted process, but the Constitution itself provides the blueprint.Article Vallows such a confab if two-thirds of Congress or two-thirds of the state legislatures call for one. These days, conservatives are the driving force for the idea, as they see it as a means to put further limits on the federal government. Sometimes,progressivespropose such a thing. Their goals are to enshrine various social programs and social-justice concepts. Yet anyone who has watched the moronic sausage-making in Congress and state legislatures should be wary of openingPandora's Box. I'd be happy enough if both political tribes tried to uphold the Constitution as it is currently drafted. It's a brilliant document that limits the power of the government to infringe on our rights. Without the first 10—the Bill of Rights—this would be a markedly different nation. For a sense of where we might be without it, I'd recommend looking at Great Britain and its approach to the speech concepts detailed on our First Amendment. Our nation was spawned from the British, so we share a culture and history. Yet, without a specific constitutional dictate, that nation has taken a disturbingapproachthat rightly offends American sensibilities. AsTabletmagazinereported, "74-year-old Scottish grandmother Rose Docherty was arrested on video by four police officers for silently holding a sign in proximity to a Glasgow abortion clinic reading 'Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.'" Thousands of Brits are detained, questioned, and prosecuted, it notes, for online posts of the type that wouldn't raise an eyebrow here. The chilling effect is profound. This isn't as awful as what happens in authoritarian countries such as Russia, where the government's critics have a habit of accidentallyfalling out of windows. But that's thin gruel. Britain and the European Union are supposed to be free countries. Their speech codes are intended to battle disinformation/misinformation, but empowering the government to be the arbiter of such vague concepts only destroys everyone's freedoms. In 1998, Great Britain approvedArticle 10of the European Convention on Human Rights. It protects a citizen's "right to hold your own opinions and to express them freely without government interference." But it comes with limits and conditions. The authorities may quash suchspeechto "protect national security, territorial integrity (the borders of the state) or public safety," or "prevent disorder or crime," or "protect health or morals," or "maintain the authority and impartiality of judges." One may not express "views that encourage racial or religious hatred." Those are open-ended terms, which has led to bizarre prosecutions. OurFirst Amendmentincludes these words: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble." A constitutional amendment stating "no law" is more protective than a statute with asterisks and exceptions. With the political Left devoted to limiting speech based on its fixations on race and gender and the political Right's willingness to, say, deport students who take verboten positions on the war in Gaza and malign reporters asenemies of the people, I'd hate to see how speech protections would fare in a refashioned constitution. Traditionally, the Left has taken a "living and breathing" approach, insisting its plain words and founders' intent are up for reinterpretation. Sadly, modern conservatives, who previously defended originalism, seem ready to ditch the Constitution when it hinders their policy aims. Just read their dissing ofdue process—as stated in the 5th and 14th amendments, when it comes to immigration policy. When asked abouthabeas corpusduring a Senate hearing, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noemsaidit's "a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country." It's the opposite, ashabeas corpusrequires the government to explain why it's detaining people—and forbids it from holding them indefinitely. MAGA apparently believes the words of the Constitution mean the opposite of what they say. Frankly, I wouldn't want either side to be near a constitutional convention that's empowered to rewrite a document penned by men more brilliant and civic-minded than our current lot. "Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards,"wroteSupreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in the 1927 free-speech case,Whitney v. California. "They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. … If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence." We don't need to revisit theConstitution, but to uphold the protections already within it. This column wasfirst publishedin The Orange County Register. The postBritish Attacks on Free Speech Prove the Value of the First Amendmentappeared first onReason.com.