there are simply far more exceptions to free speech, privacy, etc Actually, in many ways I'd say that the EU has better privacy rights than the US. The Data Pr

there are simply far more exceptions to free speech, privacy, etc Actually, in many ways I'd say that the EU has better privacy rights than the US. The Data Protection Directive covers a lot more privacy stuff than is covered by US law. You're right about "free speech", more things are legal to say in the USA than in EU countries, however that's (I think) at the expense of other human rights. If you give more free speech rights, you take away other rights (e.g. the free speech rights of the Westboro Baptist church to picket funerals takes away the right to privacy and happiness for the family who are burying a family member. The free speech rights to say "$PERSON has erectile disfunction" takes away the right to privacy of $PERSON, etc.). It all depends on how much you value some things. (How much do you value privacy, how much do you value free speech, how much do you value right to life of marginalized groups etc) (I'm using EU because I'm more familiar with it)