In a 2018 Reporters Without Borders study measuring the World Press Freedom Index, the United States of America was ranked 45th. While we as Americans may sing that we live in the “land of the free and home of the brave” in the Star-Spangled Banner, in reality, the top-five freest countries are Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland and Switzerland.

While the U.S. doesn’t rank anywhere near the bottom tier of freedom levels with countries such as China, Syria and North Korea, how could so many other countries be freer than the U.S. when our first amendment clearly lays out the foundation of the government being built upon the freedom of its people?

While people will easily attribute the fall of America’s essential values, such as freedom of the press, to the election of Donald Trump into the office of presidency, the U.S. actually began to see a major fluctuation in freedom during the former president’s time in office. In 2009, at the start of Obama’s presidency, the United States was tied with the United Kingdom at 21st in the World Press Freedom Index. In the 2011/2012 report, the U.S. fell to 47th. In 2013, the U.S. improved its position and rose to a ranking of 32nd. The year 2015 resulted in the U.S. landing at 49th place, and the 2017 ranking was 43rd.

Thus, President Trump, though he has contributed to the fall in the freedom of the American press by calling, via Twitter, all media in opposition to any of his statements or policies “fake news” and a “stain on America,” his attempts to discredit media are not the main reasons the U.S. is only averagely free.

In fact, one of the major reasons accounting for the fluctuation in freedom rates during Obama’s presidency was the incident concerning the Obama administration tapping journalists’ phones. The event consisted of federal investigators seizing several months’ worth of records from several Associated Press journalists’ phones.

The New York Times, in an article entitled “Phone Records of Journalists Seized by the U.S.,” called the event a “serious interference with [the Associated Press’s] constitutional rights to gather and report news.” While no official reason was ever given for the government going against the first amendment, many believe the government was attempting to cover their own mistake in leaking information concerning an international terrorist attack.

Another instance of a lack of freedom of the press in the United States occurred in 2016 when a Georgian journalist requested information from a state judge, and the judge had the reporter arrested for the request, according to an article in Vice News.

The freedom of the American press has been diminished drastically from 2009 to 2018. While these are only a few specific examples explaining the decline, there are countless others. The United States may claim to be the freest country, but we need to understand the extent of that freedom, because as soon as any restrictions on freedom of speech are implemented, we, as people, really have no other rights.