Quote Originally Posted by Eric C. View Post
But back then in the USSR, they could jail you for getting info from foreign sources. (at least, before "perestroika")
Is there an actual law about that, or have you heard of anyone who got in trouble for it?

I doubt it, at least in modern times. All of the socialist states in Europe were quite keen not to be seen as dictatorships (although they ultimately largely failed). But blatantly banning access to foreign media would have been quite a giveaway. I doubt they did that and I think it was much more a case of that it simply was hard for people to get access to foreign media. I think I read that they actually jammed the signals of stations like Radio Free Europe.

In Finland at the time, it was well known that half of Estonia watched Finnish TV. Everyone in Finland knows this. I heard that people in Estonia had two antennas on the roofs - one for regular TV and one aimed towards Finland. I doubt people would have put up a second antenna if they had feared arrest! Not sure when glasnost kicked in, but I think this started long before that. And don't forget places like Germany where people could watch the other country's TV.

I would guess that the USSR did not import foreign newspapers though, at least not to sell to regular people in kiosks. But I think it's a simplified and incorrect view to say that they imprisoned people for accessing foreign media! However, if anyone has concrete information to the opposite, please say - it would be interesting to hear.
Quote Originally Posted by Paul G
Everyone knows that the US now looks like the late USSR, it's not a secret.
Not too sure it looks like the USSR, but I get the gist of what you are saying. The tragic thing is that the majority of Americans are so utterly convinced that their country stands for ultimate freedom, when in reality things are moving further and further away from that, while power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small minority, all the while regular people are getting poorer by the month.