Have you watched the news lately? What usually takes up most of their time? Holiday shopping? Celebrity news? Recipes and reality show coverage? Do we still get the hard hitting investigative stories we use to get in the days of Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow? No. We use to get a fair presentation of the issues, usually both sides of the story and it was up to us to discern it's meaning. Occasionally their would be some whisle blower whose revelation shook the very foundations of our society. One such revelation cause a president to resign in shame. These instances may have shaken us to the core, but we always came out stronger as a result.
No long do we get the news that might be problematic but necessary to hear. No longer does our media ask the hard hitting questions of our leader out of fear they may lose theie Whitehouse pass or Corporate sponsors. Make us see what is uncomfortable to see. Our press at one time was given a most important position in American society as the eyes of our conscience. The press was protected in the First Amendment of the Bill of rights because our founders new that without information it would be difficult if not impossible for Americans to make crucial decisions about the course of our nation.
Recently, a man by the name of Julian Assange of the international non-profit whistle blower Wikileaks, has been getting quite a lot of attention. (Bye the way it is no mistake that you can not go to the wikileaks site as you a Free American have been censored from viewing this and other web sites.) The Mantra on the main streem media has been to call such leaks, treasonous.
No long do we get the news that might be problematic but necessary to hear. No longer does our media ask the hard hitting questions of our leader out of fear they may lose theie Whitehouse pass or Corporate sponsors. Make us see what is uncomfortable to see. Our press at one time was given a most important position in American society as the eyes of our conscience. The press was protected in the First Amendment of the Bill of rights because our founders new that without information it would be difficult if not impossible for Americans to make crucial decisions about the course of our nation.
Recently, a man by the name of Julian Assange of the international non-profit whistle blower Wikileaks, has been getting quite a lot of attention. (Bye the way it is no mistake that you can not go to the wikileaks site as you a Free American have been censored from viewing this and other web sites.) The Mantra on the main streem media has been to call such leaks, treasonous.
However, I would disagree based on the fact that government is supposed to work for the people. As we all know, employees should never conduct backroom deals without their bosses knowing what is going on. I can understand that giving up military strategy before a battle has been launched could put lives at risk but this is not what has been leaked. A free society can not remain free if government is always acting in the shadows. If we are ultimately held responsible for the actions of our government then we must keep an ever watchful eye on it.
There is another more ominous point here. Generally speaking, if the Corporate owned media don't want you to know something it's not covered by them at all. However, Wikileaks has achieved unprecedented coverage and very little positive coverage I might add. Senator Joe Lieberman, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee has been extremely vocal in his opposition to this sort of leak of classified documents.
There is another more ominous point here. Generally speaking, if the Corporate owned media don't want you to know something it's not covered by them at all. However, Wikileaks has achieved unprecedented coverage and very little positive coverage I might add. Senator Joe Lieberman, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee has been extremely vocal in his opposition to this sort of leak of classified documents.
Senator Lieberman has gone so far as to introduce legislation that will outlaw such leaks as terrorist actions and prosecute persons leaking information and entities disseminating such information. He has gone as far as intimidating companies from releasing the leaked information and has threatened the New York Times with criminal charges. The legislation introduced may even give the government the authority to shut down websites that are in violation of the legislation. Has Senator Leiberman read the Bill of Rights, specifically the First Amendment? If anything is considered treasonous it is something that endangers the very freedoms that are written in the Bill of rights. Is it possible that these politaically embarrassing, but not dangerous, leaks were a ploy to give justification for the passage of unconstitutional legislation and further userpation of our rights as Americans? I don't know. However, if our media functioned as it should there would be no need for Wikileaks. For those that still cling to the notion that this type of thing should be illegal, I ask you then, how may we know when our government has gone a stray? How may we hear of the mistakes that government is unwilling to share? Only Americans as people have the right of privacy, Government does not.
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