The headline look pretty accurate to me. Under this ruling, being a US citizen does not guarantee you a constitutional right to safe drinking water; that right would depend on state legislation.

I think the bigger deal is that the people of Jackson were lied to and this sets the precedent that there is no recourse. It's not like someone in Flint knowingly drank contaminated water, the city withheld the fact that their water was contaminated with unsafe levels of lead.

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throw93839394 a minute ago | parent | next [-]

There is another way to look at it.

As water consumer, I have a right not to trust officials about tap water quality, and buy my own drinking water in plastic bottles!

I use Jackson example, everytime someone pushes "tap water is safe" bs!

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Smaug123 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

As the article says, the situation in Jackson was deplorable; and it is indeed mind-boggling (to my puny European mind) that the same constitution which grants freedom of speech and the press was also not intended to grant the right to receive only believed-correct information from the government. But the ruling, for example, is not quoted as making any mention of any federal laws? The headline may be true for all I know, but the article provides only evidence for its truth about one particular source of rights.

	▲	TheOtherHobbes 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It is mind-boggling, but the US Constitution doesn't do that. It's not unique in that. Bad-faith pollution of truth is a new legal concept, and only a few countries have explicit legal protections against it. The UK had a case a few years ago where this was tested, the judgement was "Well, if we expected our politicians to tell the truth, where would that end, nyuck nyuck nyuck?" It's actually a tacit assumption that politicians and representatives lie, the media lie, and this is how things are. There are proposals in the UK and Wales to change this. My guess is they won't get anywhere near explicit approval in the UK. They might in the Welsh Senedd. Meanwhile the US has Fox claiming that it's an 'entertainment' channel, and no one should expect truth or honesty from it.