Friday, September 27, 2013
Should you have fewer rights than the New York Times?
"The Senate will soon vote on the 'Free Flow of Information Act.' While it claims to 'protect' journalists from being forced to reveal whistleblowers, it won't protect YOU. Shouldn't you enjoy the same freedoms as The New York Times? Or does the First Amendment list exceptions?"
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Yes, the First Amendment (does) list an exception. It's "Freedom of the press". It was apparently designed to protect "journalists", (but not their sources.)
This is why the elected lying crooks in the US congress are now debating just what a "journalist" is. Keep in mind that politicians can not exist (without) the media, and vise-versa. They feed off of each other at the expense of the mindless sheeple.
The original intent was to protect anyone with a printing press. Anyone who printed a flyer or posted a bill calling attention to the abuses of government.
Since there are no longer printing presses, and it has been expanded to include non-print media, it should apply to everyone who makes a habit of disseminating information and opinion - whether for free or for profit.
The "press", small P. When the Constitution was written, printing your views was the only way to widely distribute them. It was, and still is, the equivalent to speaking your mind.
Dead right - and lots of early pamphleteers did so anonymously or using nomes de plume.
Many revolutionary heroes wouldn't have been protected had the protection only applied to the traditional or established press.
I think this is obvious and inescapable - the established press is much more easy to control by the powers that be and the only alternative sources of information to publish contrary views are the informal press.
Just wait, the next government agency they come out with will be the ministry of truth.
After all we can't have all those peasants having access to dangerous things like information now can we? They might start thinking for themselves!
joseph Goebbels would be proud!
Here it is, and I quote:
"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"
It says "abridging the freedom of speech, OR of the press"
It does not say "abridging the freedom of speech FOR of the press."
"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives."
- Robert Heinlein
"With the first link, a chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied --chains us all irrevocably."
"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."
-Ayn Rand
When people are free to do as they wish you get woodstock.
When governments free to do as IT wishes, you get Auschwitz!
"We are living in a world in which nobody is free, in which hardly anybody is secure, in which it is almost impossible to be honest and to remain alive.”
- George Orwell – 1937
if the government feel it has the right to take from me anything it wants, I have just one piece of advice for them...
BRING GUNS!
What is actually behind congress taking a close look at this issue is, to define "journalism". What they, and the MSM, (don't want), is for the definition to include "reporters", since that would include all bloggers, the one group they are desperately looking to severely limit.
2:28,
After reading the whole bill, I think the case can be made the law does include bloggers. However, it is important to note that the bill only applies to Federal issues - not state ones - so state "shield" laws remain in effect. (It should also be noted that judges in states have already ruled that bloggers are not reporters and not covered by shield laws.)
Those shield laws already grant members of the media priviledges above that of a regular citizen. If a member of the media has some tell them they committed a crime, the reporter can't be compelled to say who told them. If a citizen has someone tell them they committed a crime, that citizen can be cited and jailed for obstruction if they do not tell the authorities when questioned.
It is two standards.
I believe shield laws should be abolished and that the right not to speak - even when questioned by police - be held as Constitutional.
Either no one has to give up sources, or everyone does.
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