We Rank 46th in the World for Freedom of the Press?

Posted on Tuesday, February 18, 2014 by Post Scripts

How far the mighty have fallen.

The U.S. dropped 13 places to end up 46th on the World Press Freedom index published annually by Reporters Without Borders (RWB).

If we translated our press freedom rating to a scale of military strength, we’d be on par with Croatia, Nigeria and Yemen.

Journalist Barrett Brown is currently in prison awaiting trial, and he faces a 105 year sentence for sharing a link to publicly-viewable leaked documents. His case is one of many RWB cites in explaining the drop in ranking.

Another offense against press freedom took place in 2012 when the Department of Justice pulled Associated Press phone records to try to uncover a source in the CIA.

According to RWB the Department of Justice has yet to provide legal support for the seizure.

If it’s bad to be a journalist under this administration, it’s even worse to be a whistle-blower.

When Obama took office his platform contained a passage on protecting whistle-blowers, which read, in part: “Barack Obama will strengthen whistle-blower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government.”

That language sharply contrasts with the fact that the Obama administration has already prosecuted 8 whistle-blowers under the Espionage Act—more than all previous administrations combined.

Private Chelsea Manning, who leaked a trove of documents to Wikileaks in 2011, is currently serving a 35 year prison term.

Rapists, child molesters and even murderers routinely spend less time behind bars.
Are those really the societal priorities we’re comfortable with?

Most of us know that Edward Snowden, who leaked information about NSA mass surveillance of U.S. citizens, is currently living in asylum in Russia to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison.

James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, told Fox News he thinks Snowden should be tried for treason and “hanged by his neck until he is dead.”

Other members of the intelligence community, including a current NSA analyst, were quoted anonymously by Buzzfeed as calling for Snowden’s death.

Glenn Greenwald, the reporter for The Guardian who broke the Snowden leaks, is also afraid to return to the U.S.

The New York native is currently living in Brazil.

Greenwald has good reason to be afraid.

James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, called Greenwald an “accomplice” to what he said is a treasonous crime.

In 2013, reporter Michael Hastings, who broke the Rolling Stone story that led to the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal, died when his car careened off the road and exploded on impact.

Is it just a coincidence that the journalist who took down one of the most powerful military men in the world, who was working on a similar piece about the current director of the CIA, accelerated his car through an intersection to his death, a day after trying to borrow his neighbor’s car to leave town after sharing with her a suspicion that his own had been tampered with?

What’s chilling about a case like Hastings’ is not what did happen, but what plausibly could have— the military and intelligence interests in this country have grown so entrenched, so massive and so secretive that even the most paranoid of conspiracy theories can no longer be entirely ruled out.

The most common defense of overbearing and draconian government policies is that they are necessary for our safety, but the truth is the dichotomy between liberty and security is a false one.

We are not safer when we submit ourselves to ever-increasing levels of scrutiny— we are in much graver danger of sliding toward effective authoritarianism.

Journalist and political commentator Dan Carlin has said that he doesn’t think our democracy could survive another attack on the scale of 9/11, and I’m afraid he might be right.

It isn’t the terrorists who are poised to destroy us, it is we who are poised to destroy ourselves.

Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and countless others since have warned us of the dangers of sacrificing essential liberty for a false sense of security.

We should know better.

We can do better.

– See more at: http://spartandaily.com/116304/u-s-press-freedom-rank-plummets#sthash.PO0mtPB8.dpuf

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4 Responses to We Rank 46th in the World for Freedom of the Press?

  1. Tina says:
    Thursday, February 20, 2014 at 9:59 am

    Jack I don’t know how I missed this post…its an important one, particularly with news that came out today:

    WSJ:

    News organizations often disagree about what Americans need to know. MSNBC, for example, apparently believes that traffic in Fort Lee, N.J., is the crisis of our time. Fox News, on the other hand, chooses to cover the September 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi more heavily than other networks. The American people, for their part, disagree about what they want to watch.

    But everyone should agree on this: The government has no place pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.

    Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission, where I am a commissioner, does not agree. Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run. A field test in Columbia, S.C., is scheduled to begin this spring.

    The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about “the process by which stories are selected” and how often stations cover “critical information needs,” along with “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.”

    News organizations often disagree about what Americans need to know. MSNBC, for example, apparently believes that traffic in Fort Lee, N.J., is the crisis of our time. Fox News, on the other hand, chooses to cover the September 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi more heavily than other networks. The American people, for their part, disagree about what they want to watch.

    But everyone should agree on this: The government has no place pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.

    Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission, where I am a commissioner, does not agree. Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run. A field test in Columbia, S.C., is scheduled to begin this spring.

    The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about “the process by which stories are selected” and how often stations cover “critical information needs,” along with “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.”

    How does the FCC plan to dig up all that information? First, the agency selected eight categories of “critical information” such as the “environment” and “economic opportunities,” that it believes local newscasters should cover. It plans to ask station managers, news directors, journalists, television anchors and on-air reporters to tell the government about their “news philosophy” and how the station ensures that the community gets critical information.

    The FCC also wants to wade into office politics. One question for reporters is: “Have you ever suggested coverage of what you consider a story with critical information for your customers that was rejected by management?” Follow-up questions ask for specifics about how editorial discretion is exercised, as well as the reasoning behind the decisions.

    Participation in the Critical Information Needs study is voluntary—in theory. Unlike the opinion surveys that Americans see on a daily basis and either answer or not, as they wish, the FCC’s queries may be hard for the broadcasters to ignore. They would be out of business without an FCC license, which must be renewed every eight years.

    Obamaworld…the brave new world of tyranny and loss of freedoms!

  2. Dewey says:
    Thursday, February 20, 2014 at 12:09 pm

    LOL

    this will go on as a result of Citizens United decision that allows money to buy out our system. It matters not who is in the White House this has been going on for years! JFK and even Eisenhower warned us. Now that money is free speech and the call for absolutely no regulations you blame 1 man?

    Review JFK’s secret society speech, FDR and Eisenhower…….history has warned us
    The problem is the corruption and citozens united.

    Where does most super pac advertising take place?……….MEDIA

    How many men own the media?

    A big circle of corruption and money that circles the media.

    MSNBC firing people for things Fox does daily?

    Fox repeating lies using “Some people would Say?

    Yep I guess 1 man is responsible for the media?

    How about those who are buying the system out and the tea party protecting them?

    • Post Scripts says:
      Thursday, February 20, 2014 at 12:21 pm

      Dewey it’s distrubing how narrow your focus and hatred is for the benign Tea Party. Have you ever had thoughts of going off grid, living in a moutain cabin, writing a manefesto and mailing letter bombs to Tea Party members, Haliburton and the Koch brothers?

  3. Dewey says:
    Thursday, February 20, 2014 at 1:33 pm

    Post scripts

    Tea Party is represented by their Politicians and donors. The corruption is massive. Scott Walker actually using staff paid by taxpayers to campaigning from their desks on laptops?

    A normal human would never even have your thoughts come across their minds, but those are exactly the types of people attracted to the tea party on a national level.

    https://www.sodahead.com/united-states/are-the-tea-party-militia-survivalists-totally-wacko-nuts/question-1057739/

    http://www.teapartynation.com/group/theinstantsurvivalist

    Independent Americans are going to deal with the problem the long hard way using Democracy.

    We will leave the crazy stuff for the Tea Party

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/matt-shea-washington-ammunition_n_3689576.html

    What kind of person would say stuff like that? Time for the man to look in the mirror.

    Truth will prevail, Propaganda will do harm but history will record these koch crazies……

    There are others to expose, but Charles and David will not prevail

    Epic Fail, not falling for the implication you believe your own stuff hypocrisy at best

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