The end of Free Speech?

raid517 · Jul 6, 2005, 11:32 PM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4654969.stm

It seems that the American press is no longer as free as it once may have been. Now presidents can throw people in jail and ruin the carreers of those who dare to critisize them - even when that criticism is largely true.

Quote:

Journalists are not entitled to promise complete confidentiality - no-one in America is

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald

So I take it this means lawyers, doctors, psychiatrists, businessmen, inventors and even priests' - or indeed anyone who works in any field where the maintainance of confidentiality is crucial if they are to perform their function effectively?

I wonder if the Watergate scandal would have ever come to light if the Washington Post reporters had been forced to reveal their sources before the story really broke? The Watergate scandal din't happen overnight, the government then fought hard to bury the story then aswell - and they nearly succeeded too.

I think it is a very sad state of affairs. The charges against this reporter are both trumped up and completely petty. If this was happening in a third world country, most people would agree that it was an insult to democracy and a blatant afront to human rights. It is even harder to believe that this is happing in America.

I do remember once upon a time (it seems a long time ago now) when despite all of it faults, America did seem to stand for freedom. Not any more though, or so it appears. I wonder if those days will ever return?

GJ

�amage� · Jul 7, 2005, 12:01 AM

HEIL BUSH! Did you also know that Bush is actually trying to admonish the 2 term policy so he can stay in office longer.. sounds like another Hitler to me, just with a different face. I know im gonna get it now from all the bush lovers.. oh well they can't be spoon fed forever. Most Americans: "if it's on TV it has to be true.. I watched it on CNN" LoL peace.

nitrousoxide52 · Jul 7, 2005, 12:05 AM

I guess they had a valid reason to jail her though, she was concealing someone who was imperative in the case of CIA, the gov't is always above our rights anyways, noone ever notices anyways. They provided us with those rights in the first place, and do there best to protect them every day anyways.

raid517 · Jul 7, 2005, 12:44 AM

They don't 'provide you with rights'. You are supposed to elect them to protect the rights that you already have and that are enshrined in your constitution. The government doesn't dish out rights to you as though they were some kind of charity. In a real democracy the government is supposed to work for and be employed by you, not the other way around.

Freedom of the press is a vital part of the freedom of speech, because if you can't report anymore on potentially damaging or incriminating political events, then you are no longer free to let the world know when your government does anything wrong. And a society that cannot criticise its leadership is the exact definition of a dictatorship.

GJ

OldBuzzard · Jul 7, 2005, 02:03 AM

Freedom of the Press, does NOT mean 'Freedom to break the LAW". The reporters in question violated a LAWFUL order from a judge. The case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, and that court did not overturn the order. Those 'journalists' were shielding a CRIMINAL. The person that revealed the name of the CIA agent violated federal law. Why is it so hard for some of you people to understand that? If this was in another case where the person being shielded had NOT violated the law, the reporter's claim of confidentiality would have been upheld.

THAT gentleman, is democracy in action. There was NOTHING in that case that 'allows the president to jail people'.

You know, it's getting to be damned irritating to listen to all you the UNINFORMED, people in these forums.

Damage...that is UTTER NONSENCE!! The two term limit (which used to be a self-imposed limit that was started by George Washington, until a DEMOCRAT decided to do ignore convention and run FOUR times) is now a part of the Constitution. To be repealed, it would take a Constitutuonal Ammendment, which would take YEARS, to get thru the process. WAY too long for it to be of any use to GW. This is nothing but more liberal hate, fearmongering, and utter BALDERDASH!

Rights? If you want to worry about (if you are an American at least) your 'rights', what about the Court ruling inre private property rights? The liberals on the Supreme Court just told you that the STATE may take your PRIVATE property, and GIVE it to another PRIVATE individule, so he can profit from it. So much for the LIBERALS standing up for the 'little guy'.

nitrousoxide52 · Jul 7, 2005, 02:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raid517

They don't 'provide you with rights'. You are supposed to elect them to protect the rights that you already have and that are enshrined in your constitution. The government doesn't dish out rights to you as though they were some kind of charity. In a real democracy the government is supposed to work for and be employed by you, not the other way around.

Freedom of the press is a vital part of the freedom of speech, because if you can't report anymore on potentially damaging or incriminating political events, then you are no longer free to let the world know when your government does anything wrong. And a society that cannot criticise its leadership is the exact definition of a dictatorship.

GJ

Noone ever said we have a freedom of no speech though.

Tipstaff · Jul 7, 2005, 02:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldBuzzard

Freedom of the Press, does NOT mean 'Freedom to break the LAW". The reporters in question violated a LAWFUL order from a judge. The case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, and that court did not overturn the order. Those 'journalists' were shielding a CRIMINAL. The person that revealed the name of the CIA agent violated federal law. Why is it so hard for some of you people to understand that? If this was in another case where the person being shielded had NOT violated the law, the reporter's claim of confidentiality would have been upheld.

THAT gentleman, is democracy in action. There was NOTHING in that case that 'allows the president to jail people'.

You know, it's getting to be damned irritating to listen to all you the UNINFORMED, people in these forums.

Damage...that is UTTER NONSENCE!! The two term limit (which used to be a self-imposed limit that was started by George Washington, until a DEMOCRAT decided to do ignore convention and run FOUR times) is now a part of the Constitution. To be repealed, it would take a Constitutuonal Ammendment, which would take YEARS, to get thru the process. WAY too long for it to be of any use to GW. This is nothing but more liberal hate, fearmongering, and utter BALDERDASH!

Rights? If you want to worry about (if you are an American at least) your 'rights', what about the Court ruling inre private property rights? The liberals on the Supreme Court just told you that the STATE may take your PRIVATE property, and GIVE it to another PRIVATE individule, so he can profit from it. So much for the LIBERALS standing up for the 'little guy'.

OldB, you saved me a whole bunch of typing.

raid517 · Jul 7, 2005, 09:02 AM

What I don't get is why you so called conservatives seem so happy to see your rights erroded too? To be honest I think (or it seems from this end) that you are so obsessive in your love of George W. Bush that you would be prepared to put up with virtually anything he does. From any perspective (other than perhaps your own) this looks and smells every bit like a witch hunt - where you have begun throwning your press in jail for daring to print criticisims of your president.

Now I'm glad your happy with that, but from the outside it looks positively barbaric.

And the freedom to speak does (and must) also imply the freedom not to speak - because as I said if you can offer no right to confidentiality, how when your government does commit a genuine offense (as it did with Watergate) can you guranteee that such an offense will be reported? If the Watergate reporters who broke their story had faced the prospect of going to jail for refusing to reveal their sources, do you think we would have known about your governments wrong doings today? Are you seriously saying that you would have been happy to live with a coverup?

Perhaps the Washington Post reporters would have still had the courage to break their story and to protect their sources (as these reporters did) despite the prospect of an extended period in jail, but there is no doubt that the reporting of such incidents would have been (and will be) made very much less likely.

I think the problem is with you guys is that your government has controlled you so cleverly, and has manipulated you all so effectively, like the puppets you all seem to be and that they have managed to whip you into a paranoid frenzy so skillfully over the so called liberal press - that when it comes to it - throwing the press in jail (and potentially everyone else who dares to disagree with this government) doesn't seem like the bad thing to you that it may once have done.

As for the extended term thing - I doubt that too. I predict fully that by the time the next election comes around Bush's personal popularity will have sunk so low and everyone will have become so sick of living in the pseudo police state that he has created that the American people will boot him out of the Whitehouse door so hard and so fast that his arse won't touch the grass for at least a week.

Mark my words. No matter how much some of the more rightwing members of this forum might dislike me or what I have to say, I have a good history of being right on this forum.

GJ

OldBuzzard · Jul 7, 2005, 10:52 AM

Ok Raid...let's just give reporters TOTAL immunity. Now lets's have THIS happen.

1. Your wife/daughter/mother is brutally raped and killed. Police have no leads, and no evidence.

2. I am a reporter, and the killer calls me and I meet and interview him.

3. Court wants me to identify killer.

4. I refuse, citing 'Freedom of the Press'. Killer goes free.

This is what you are advocating. I'm sure that if that actually (god forbid) happened, that you would be singing a different tune that you are now.

Also, these reporters WERE NOT JAILED FOR CRITIZING THE PRESIDENT!!! They were jailed for refusing to identify a CRIMINAL.

Quit trying to use a tired old smokescreen of "Everything we don't like is Bush's fault".

�amage� · Jul 7, 2005, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldBuzzard

Ok Raid...let's just give reporters TOTAL immunity. Now lets's have THIS happen.

1. Your wife/daughter/mother is brutally raped and killed. Police have no leads, and no evidence.

2. I am a reporter, and the killer calls me and I meet and interview him.

3. Court wants me to identify killer.

4. I refuse, citing 'Freedom of the Press'. Killer goes free.

This is what you are advocating. I'm sure that if that actually (god forbid) happened, that you would be singing a different tune that you are now.

Also, these reporters WERE NOT JAILED FOR CRITIZING THE PRESIDENT!!! They were jailed for refusing to identify a CRIMINAL.

Quit trying to use a tired old smokescreen of "Everything we don't like is Bush's fault".

Bush Lover!! It was actually a CIA agent that is in question here, but I bet it leads right back to that s.o.b. Bush!!

p.s. I'm just playin OldBuzzard, I dont care if you have a nazi for a president

lenchmob · Jul 7, 2005, 11:09 AM

raid157:

I completely agree with you on this one (shock).

raid517 · Jul 7, 2005, 11:23 AM

That is a particularly riduculous example. Your aguments are just too simplistic. Personally I think the job of the press is to work in the public interest, not to protect murderers - so in this sense if a reporter gained information about a murderer it very much would be in the public interest to report this. What we are talking about is potentially protecting the sources that led you to that muderer - which I continue to assert is an important facet of any truly free press within a genuinely democratic society.

The same is true when reveling information about the wrongdoings and potetial misjudgments of the political elite of a country. It is clearly in the public interest to learn if and when your government scews up - and to be not be made to fear imprisonment for simply having the courage to speak out.

Quote:

Also, these reporters WERE NOT JAILED FOR CRITIZING THE PRESIDENT!!! They were jailed for refusing to identify a CRIMINAL.

And the crime this so called criminal committed? Clearly the only real crime in this case was that they revealed the name of someone high up in the security establishment who (guess what?) was very critical of the president.

Don't you think that's at the very least is borderline?

Even if you can manipulate it to not look like a witchhunt (which is pretty hard from any reasonable perspective to do) it certainly sets an example, where the press may have to think twice about reporting potentially damaging stories about your government (even if they are true) in future. It also sets a genuine legal precident where (if you will recall) the prosecuter's argument was that no one in America has a right to confidentiality (presumably this means, as I said, doctors, priests, lawyers, judges, psychistrits and anyone who's job requires genuine confidentiality) which is an argument that the judge in this case appears to have agreed with. Now it seems you have no confidentiality at all, if your government compels you to speak. You simply have no choice. So much then for the 5th. (I know this case is not covered by the 5th, however remember that the prosecuter's argument was no one in America has the right not to speak). Nothing you do or say in America is likely to be considered genuinely confidential any more. If your government wants to know about it, then you must tell them, or face going to jail.

How can you trully have free speech, if you do not also have the right not to speak? Free speech is not free seech at all, when you can be compelled to speak by your government.

GJ

OldBuzzard · Jul 7, 2005, 11:55 AM

So, if the crime suits your purposes, it's OK, and not a 'real' crime? Yes the example WAS ridiculous, and intentially so, as to point out the ridiculous nature of YOUR defence of the criminal act of the person the reporter was shielding.

Also, the purpose of the PRESS is to REPORT, nothing more, nothing less. If they want to be 'social activists' they need to do it in other venues.

Oh Damage, yes, I'm certain it was all Bush's fault. After all he IS the liberal's 'boogy man'. You can be sure that if you decide to have a picknic next week-end and it rains on you, that it was good ole GW that made THAT happen too

raid517 · Jul 7, 2005, 12:06 PM

No that is not what the job of the press is. If the job of the press is simply to 'report' then clearly, what is to stop your govenment from telling them exactly what they can and cannot report? Again your argument over simplfies the issue. It has to be about more than that. Freedom, democracy, the right to free speech and the freedom of the press are all simply different aspects of the same coin - they are essentially the same thing. You cannot limit one without directly limiting the others too.

If protecting freedom of speech and freedom of expression are things that are deemed to be in the public interest (and most sensible people would agree that they are) then a free press must also be seen as being in the public interest. And what other function can a free press have other than to protect and defend the freedoms of the society and the public interest that they are supposed to represent? A free press that neglects to do so is again not in any real sense genuinely free.

GJ

�amage� · Jul 7, 2005, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldBuzzard

Oh Damage, yes, I'm certain it was all Bush's fault. After all he IS the liberal's 'boogy man'. You can be sure that if you decide to have a picknic next week-end and it rains on you, that it was good ole GW that made THAT happen too

LoL roger that!! That dirty bastad!!