\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\nGovernments that try to force citizens to decide between a free\r\npress and national security create a “false choice” that weakens\r\ndemocracy, and journalists must fight increasing government\r\noverreach that has had a chilling effect on efforts to hold leaders\r\naccountable, the president and CEO of The Associated Press said\r\nSaturday.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nGary Pruitt told the 69th General Assembly of the Inter American\r\nPress Association that the U.S. Justice Department’s secret seizure\r\nof records of thousands of telephone calls to and from AP reporters\r\nin 2012 is one of the most blatant violations of the First Amendment\r\nto the U.S. Constitution the 167-year-old news cooperative has ever\r\nencountered.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThe Justice Department action involving the AP resonated far beyond\r\nthe U.S., including Latin America, where journalists for decades\r\nhave fought to exercise press freedoms under authoritarian regimes,\r\nPruitt said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n“The actions by the Department of Justice could not have been more\r\ntailor-made to comfort authoritarian regimes who want to suppress\r\nthe news media. ‘The United States does it too,’ they can say,”\r\nPruitt said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nA free and independent press “differentiates democracy from\r\ndictatorship; separates a free society from tyranny,” he said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n“Governments who try to set up a situation where citizens think they\r\nmust choose between a free press and security are making a mistake\r\nthat will ultimately weaken them, not strengthen them. It’s not a\r\nreal choice. It is a false choice.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nAs Julian Assange pointed out two years ago,\r\n\r\n\u201cthe citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state.\u201d<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n“Individuals, not governments, have a right to privacy. Strong\r\npowers must be held to account, while the weak must be protected. We\r\nbelieve in transparent power, not in transparent people. We publish\r\nmaterial that is in the public interest. For us as the European\r\nCourt of Human Rights and the British Court of Appeals has held, the\r\ndecisive factor in balancing the protection of private life against\r\nfreedom of expression should like in the contribution the material\r\nhas make to the debate of general interest.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nAs\r\n\r\nBruce Schneier pointed out five years ago<\/a>,\r\n
\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe debate isn’t security versus privacy. It’s liberty versus control.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nPress freedom is an essential part of liberty.\r\nBruce elaborated:\r\n
\r\n\r\nIf privacy and security really were a zero-sum game, we would have\r\nseen mass immigration into the former East Germany and modern-day\r\nChina. While it’s true that police states like those have less\r\nstreet crime, no one argues that their citizens are fundamentally\r\nmore secure.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nAs\r\n\r\nI pointed out seven years ago<\/a>,\r\nliberty is security:\r\n
\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\nOne method to attenuate [suicide bombers], then, is to target dangerous\r\ngroups that influence individuals, such as Al \u00adQaeda. Another method,\r\nsays Princeton University economist Alan B. Krueger, is to increase\r\nthe civil liberties of the countries that breed terrorist groups. In\r\nan analysis of State Department data on terrorism, Krueger discovered\r\nthat \u201ccountries like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, which have spawned\r\nrelatively many terrorists, are economically well off yet lacking in\r\ncivil liberties. Poor countries with a tradition of protecting civil\r\nliberties are unlikely to spawn suicide terrorists. Evidently, the\r\nfreedom to assemble and protest peacefully without interference from the\r\ngovernment goes a long way to providing an alternative to terrorism.\u201d\r\nLet freedom ring!\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n—\r\nMurdercide\r\nScience unravels the myth of suicide bombers<\/a>\r\nBy Michael Shermer,\r\nScientific American<\/em>\r\n26 December 2005.\r\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nAs\r\n\r\nStewart Alsop pointed out 56 years ago<\/a> when Eisenhower was president,\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\nIt might make life simpler for high officials such as Mr. Cutler if\r\nthe American people were obedient sheep who unquesiontingly obeyed\r\nthe orders of daddy Governement. But the United States is not the\r\nSoviet Union. It is, instead, a society in which the Government\r\nderives its authority from the people. And such society is instantly\r\nin deadly danger if the essential facts on which to reach a reasoned\r\njudgment are concealed by the Government from the people.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\nAs Ben Franklin pointed out 254 years ago,\r\neven before he was\r\n\r\nhauled into court in London and unfairly maligned for the “crime” of distributing some government communications that he got from an anonymous source<\/a>,\r\n
\r\n“Those who would give up Essential Liberty\r\n
\r\nto purchase a little Temporary Safety,\r\n
\r\n deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”\r\n