Does the Press Care?

The silence is deafening. Here we have one of the pillars of democracy – the press, not saying boo to threats made by Bush's chihuahua, Attorney General Gonzales, that the government has the power to imprison any journalist with the temerity to reveal any actions the government wants to conceal. The Bush fascists are essentially claiming the power to hide any actions they want – just by classifying them. So if they commit illegal acts – just classify them. If there are any embarrassing personal acts committed – just classify them. Anything they don't want American citizens to know – just classify it.

Anyone who reveals the classified information will be imprisoned. Sounds just like the Soviet Union with their Gulags – doesn't it?

The founders of this nation intended that a “free press” serve as a check against presidential abuse – just as the judiciary and legislative branches are intended to be. Three co-equal branches and an independent press have served us well for hundreds of years. Bush and his minions are increasingly threatening this country's survival.

Glenn Greenwald has a post that is must reading:

It really is hard to imagine any measures which pose a greater and more direct danger to our freedoms than the issuance of threats like this by the administration against the press. If the President has the power to keep secret any information he wants simply by classifying it -- including information regarding illegal or otherwise improper actions he has taken -- then the President, by definition, has complete control over the flow of information which Americans receive about their Government.

Jefferson said: "If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter." The only reason the Founders bothered to guarantee a free press in First Amendment is because the press was intended to serve as a check against Government power.

It ought to go without saying that the press cannot serve as a check against the Executive branch if the only information it publishes is information which the President wants it to publish...... When the Government can control which information is disclosed and which information is concealed, newspapers become a government propaganda venue -- an arm of the Government -- rather than any meaningful check on it. I've cited this Jefferson warning several times before, and included it in my book, because it is so prescient and so self-evidently applicable to the Bush administration:

"Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues of truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is freedom of the press. It is therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions."

Posted on The Human Stain