Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 4:12am

Freedom of the Press is for All of Us

Freedom of the Press Under Obama

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”

Thomas Jefferson

Hattip to Instapundit. Josh Stearns at Huffington Post reports on the fact that the media in the US isn’t quite as free as it used to be.

 

According to a new report from Reporters Without Borders, there was a profound erosion of press freedom in the United States in 2013.

After a year of attacks on whistleblowers and digital journalists and revelations about mass surveillance, the United States plunged 13 spots in the group’s global press freedom rankings to number 46.

Reporters Without Borders writes that the U.S. faced “one of the most significant declines” in the world last year. Even the United Kingdom, whose sustained campaign to criminalize the Guardian’s reporters and intimidate journalists has made headlines around the world, dropped only three spots, to number 33. The U.S. fell as many spots as Paraguay, where “the pressure on journalists to censor themselves keeps on mounting.”

Citing the Justice Department’s aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers, including its secret seizure of Associated Press phone records, the authors write that “freedom of information is too often sacrificed to an overly broad and abusive interpretation of national security needs, marking a disturbing retreat from democratic practices. Investigative journalism often suffers as a result.”

The threats facing newsgathering in the U.S. are felt by both longstanding journalists like New York Times national security reporter James Risen, who may serve jail time for refusing to reveal a source, and non-traditional digital journalists like Barrett Brown.

Brown is a freelance journalist who has reported extensively on private intelligence firms and government contractors. He now faces more than 100 years in jail for linking to stolen documents as part of his reporting, even though he had no involvement in the actual theft.

Go here to Huffington Post to read the rest.  Of course most of the media have no one to blame but themselves.  They have been slavish sycophants to the current regime and have been utterly silent as it amasses more and more power and only squawk when the power of the government is turned against them.  However the ringing words of the First Amendment Are not meant for them alone.  It protects all of us who convey our messages through any medium.

The issue of the extent of First Amendment freedom of the press protection was long ago decided by the Supreme Court in Lovell v. City of Griffin (1938).  In that case, for a unanimous court, except for Benjamin Cardozo who recused himself, Chief Justice Hughes wrote:

The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals.  It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets.  These indeed have been historic weapons in the defense of liberty, as the pamphlets of Thomas Paine and others in our own history abundantly attest.  The press, in its historic connotation, comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion.  What we have had recent occasion to say with respect to the vital importance of protecting this essential liberty from every sort of infringement need not be repeated.  Near v. Minnesota, supra; Grosjean v. American Press Co., supra; De Jonge v. Oregon, supra.

This is in complete accord with the intention of the Founders.  In their time news sheets were small affairs, put out by printers to supplement their income through advertising.  In effect they were the equivalent of bloggers who have adds running on their blogs.  Pamphlets and handbills were commonly printed at private expense by any person or group who wished to communicate ideas to the public.  In the years leading up to the Revolution, patriots had organized Committees of Correspondence to inform the public of the dangers from British encroachment on American liberties.  The Founding Fathers would have been the very last to restrict freedom of the press to professional, or paid, journalists, who in any case were very few in number in their day.

The First Amendment freedom of the press is for all of us, and not just the toadies who currently control most of the mainstream media.  It is for us to protect it, along with all of our other precious liberties.

The First Amendment, memorize it and live it:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

 

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Mary De Voe
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 6:44pm

Only truth has freedom of speech and press, so help me God.

Mattock
Mattock
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 6:53pm

An open society is still usually a very good thing. Sometimes error just needs a little light to show it for what it really is. To be honest. The freedom of speech is likely the last weapon we have to defend ourselves against progressivism. On an equal playing field virtue, truth, and beauty should defeat permissiveness, propaganda, and crassness every time.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 3:54am

Mary de Voe wrote, “Only truth has freedom of speech and press, so help me God.”

Certainly not for those Robespierre called, “the mercenary libellers subsidised to dishonour the people’s cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the fires of civil discord, and to prepare political counter-revolution by means of moral counter-revolution—are
these men less culpable or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve?”

Mary De Voe
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 6:50am

Thank you Michael Paterson-Seymour: ““the mercenary libellers subsidised to dishonour the people’s cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the fires of civil discord, and to prepare political counter-revolution by means of moral counter-revolution—are
these men less culpable or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve?””
.
“…the mercenary libellers” call vice virtue to kill public virtue by means of moral-counter revolution.
The right to choose, the right to privacy, equality, social Justice are words that beget human sacrifice, sodomy, redistribution of personal wealth without consent and taxation without representation all denying the human person and the soul and our God as Supreme Sovereign. The “useful idiots”, Lenin’s description of his own henchmen are quick to take credit for establishing a new order with man as a beast of burden. Jesus said to test everything. Two witnesses establish a judicial fact. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God is the only justification for the freedom of the press and speech and peaceable assembly, for invoking Divine Providence drives evil away. The First Amendment must be taken as a whole. Freedom of religion is a relationship with our Creator acknowledged by the state. Speaking, writing and assembly to exercise our relationship with our Creator, “Wherever there are two or more people gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.” is from God, not from the state. From an infinite God come unalienable human rights.

Paul W Primavera
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 7:40am

And the 1st Amendment is protected by the 2nd (which Obama and his demonic minions of darkness are trying to erode and nullify):

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

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