The Plot Against the First Amendment
April 25th, 2007It was painful for me to quote the bits about the so-called, “freedom of the American press,” but if you can grit your teeth through that part, this is an interesting and terrifying piece. The U.S. doesn’t need D notices, for the most part. Editors are pretty good and censoring themselves.
But fascists always want more control, and the current U.S. regime is especially rabid.
Via: Harper’s:
In June, a case is slated to go to trial in Northern Virginia that will mark a first step in a plan to silence press coverage of essential national security issues. The plan was hatched by Alberto Gonzales and his deputy, Paul J. McNulty—the two figures at the center of a growing scandal over the politicization of the prosecutorial process. This may in fact be the most audacious act of political prosecution yet. But so far, it has gained little attention and is poorly understood.
In the summer of 2005, Alberto Gonzales paid a visit to British Attorney General Peter Goldsmith. A British civil servant who attended told me “it was quite amazing really. Gonzales was obsessed with the Official Secrets Act. In particular, he wanted to know exactly how it was used to block newspapers and broadcasters from running news stories derived from official secrets and how it could be used to criminalise persons who had no formal duty to maintain secrets. He saw it as a panacea for his problems: silence the press. Then you can torture and abuse prisoners and what you will—without fear of political repercussions. It was the easy route to dealing with the Guantánamo dilemma. Don’t close down Guantánamo. Close down the press. We were appalled by it.†Appalled, he added, “but not surprised.â€
Britain has of course never had a media with the freedom of the American press. John Milton railed against the abusive requirements of licensing without making headway. Britain had the tradition of Royal Prerogative, a tradition of branding political rabble rousers with the mark “SL†for “seditious libeler.†Of course, many of those seditious libelers emigrated to America, which helps explain why this was an issue contributing to a revolution that broke out in 1776. The erstwhile colonists heard Milton’s appeal and followed it, producing a decisive parting of the ways in the English-speaking world. But that’s all very inconvenient history, which is certain soon to be expunged from the history books. After all, those who control the present, control the past. And Gonzales had come down with a very bad case of Official Secrets envy.
New Zealand still has a Sedition act. It has even been used in the past decade.
Looks like the newest plan is to lite up a nuke in Britain. My only question is how can they make sure it gets video taped for excellent news impact?
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,21605692-5005361,00.html