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You can file a freedom of information request or launch a lawsuit to contest a policy. You can be a whistleblower and leak illegal or immoral policies to media organisations. Or as an individual you can push journalists to investigate. Or launch an online campaign to draw attention to a particular issue.

You can't do any of that in China.

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Can your company legally tell me how many FISA warrants and NSL letters they received in my FOIA request?

Of course not.

FOIA obviously doesn't apply to everything. But in the case of FISA it is overseen by an independent judiciary and all of the deliberations and controversies were widely covered by the independent press.

Not to mention independent organisations like ACLU, EFF etc. who have been very vocal about trying to abolish the FISA process entirely.

Again none of this would remotely happen in China. We've seen first hand what happens to the media and dissenters in HK.

> FOIA obviously doesn't apply to everything

And that there is the problem from which no argument about checks and balances can recover.

Which is why real democracies don't allow secret courts.

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