As an addendum to Josh Hong's opinion ('Between riot and rally', May 7), I might add that street protests are the lesser agent of change. Freedom of the press is, in my view, more important, as two reporters at the Washington Post proved when their independent investigations provided the impetus for the eventual downfall of the president of the United States, Richard Nixon.

Nixon was slowly establishing a Mahathir-style dictatorship, circumventing the US constitution, and this was something that only a free and unfettered press could have brought to the attention of the public.

Hong is inaccurate when he says there is no Internal Security Act (ISA) in Britain. There is actually a national security act of some kind that allows the British government to prosecute newspapers for publishing state secrets (read: anything the government deems inappropriate for the public to know).

In the US, by contrast, the federal constitution prohibits any kind of internal security act, and furthermore, the constitution guarantees free expression to all citizens. Therefore, the government cannot prosecute a journalist or newspaper for publishing state secrets. Indeed, the government cannot even require for a licence to print or publish. And libel laws favour freedom of expression over the displeasure of public figures; it is very difficult for a public figure of any kind to win a libel suit.

Nixon and his cronies tried to sue the New York Times for publishing a highly critical and also confidential account of the Vietnam war, but lost the case. Meanwhile, the Washington Post was able to investigate the trail of dirty tricks, dirty money and a strategic effort to place many important, independent government agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) directly under his control, that exposed Nixon for what he was - a crook and prospective dictator. Had the press been more passive, the world's most powerful country may well have wound up with a Mahathir-style authoritarian police state.

It was street demonstrations in the US that ended the Vietnam war, not the Vietcong. But it was a free and unfettered press that brought down the US' Mahathir (Nixon).