User:Zakkenroller/HRUSA

Here's what I replaced on the HR USA page. Feel free to revert or to copy and replace into paragraphs if my edit was too sweeping.

quote:

The human rights record of the United States of America is a controversial issue, at one and the same time holding very strong rights in some areas, whilst being widely and heavily condemned or criticized in others. Criticism in the latter case has come from both within and outside the country due to several sources: the high profile of the country internationally; highly polarized views on its foreign policy as a superpower; significant social, political and religious divisions within the country; and the willingness of many citizens to strongly and openly express their views for and against different issues.

Historically, the United States has been committed to the protection of specific personal political, religious and other freedoms. It has sheltered many political and economic refugees in its history and has been a final destination of many immigrants from a multitude of locations around the world. It has a powerful and often independent judiciary and a constitution that attempts in many areas to enforce separation of powers to prevent tyranny.

At the same time, the U.S. has had a history of legally permitted slavery, and both racial and ethnic–religious discrimination at times when other countries had made strong inroads against these. Violation of freedoms and human rights are still routinely noted, particularly in the criminal justice system and where national security has been of particular concern. A significant degree of government mass surveillance and invasion of privacy was instigated covertly by the NSA, provisionally ruled unlawful in 2006. Politically, the United States has also attained a perception amongst a wide range of friendly and hostile countries, that it is complicit in supporting serious human rights abuses (including torture, abduction, assasination, and imprisonment without trial) as well as covert destabilization activity aimed at the overthrow or subversion of foreign democratic governments, individuals or parties. The matter is complicated by the extreme attention given the United States record -- attention which its supporters observe is not given to other countries which may be guilty of worse abuses, and where the justification for its actions is not always fully considered.