This is the second year running that we’ve had the pleasure of commenting on the release by Freedom House of its annual survey of Freedom in the World. This year’s report is out today, and it’s good news: according to the human rights group’s painstaking analysis of political and civil rights in 192 nations, “freedom’s gains outpaced setbacks by a margin of nearly two to one.”

Particularly welcome is Freedom House’s good sense — rare among human rights groups — about what is happening right here in America, where some civil rights groups have claimed that our freedom is threatened by anti-terror legislation and the Bush administration’s efforts to enforce it. Freedom House found that “the United States has to date been able to preserve a broad array of rights and liberties.”The report’s summary says that an important factor in preserving our freedom “has been the vigorous ongoing role of the judiciary, the press, and civil society organizations working to mitigate the impact of problematic actions.” Worldwide, there is still plenty of room for improvement: 49 countries were judged “not free” by Freedom House. These are concentrated in the Middle East and in Africa, though the largest “not free” nation by far in terms of population is Communist China. Of the 2.2 billion people in the world who live in “not free” countries, about 1.3 billion of them live in Red China.

The most encouraging statistics of all contained in the Freedom House report are the long-term ones. They show that the number of free countries has grown each decade, to 88 this year from 72 in 1993, 53 in 1983, and 44 in 1973. This year’s report still lists Iraq as unfree. But the way things are headed in Baghdad, when we write this editorial again next year, the number of free countries will have increased by at least one. Here’s hoping for more gains in the year ahead.