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Wednesday, 05 July 2006 15:53 |
 The conflict between national security and freedom of the press came to a head again last week.
In what is becoming a recurring theme for the Bush White House, a recent story in The New York Times uncovered a counter-terrorism program that many feel undermines Americans?? right to privacy by examining millions of citizens?? banking records.
Specifically,
the program subpoenaed records from the Society for Worldwide Interbank
Financial Telecommunication, an international organization that tracks
global financial transactions.
The Bush administration responded the same way it did to the
revelations of illegal wiretapping of Americans by the NSA ?? it blamed
the media.
Republican pundits and politicians reacted swiftly, accusing the Times
of providing intelligence to Al Quaeda and urging a criminal
investigation into whether the paper broke the law by disclosing the
project.
In other words,
rather than address questions of whether the program is illegal or
undermines privacy rights, the government is attempting to shift focus
onto the whistleblowers.
What if
criminals were allowed to behave in this way? Suppose, for instance,
that a bank robber could evade going to jail by blaming the witnesses
who identified him for undermining his right to rob banks.
Granted, there
are legitimate reasons why the government is interested in the banking
transactions of potential terrorists. However, it is a great leap to
subpoena the records of millions of citizens with no connection to
terrorism.
Regardless, it
is not the media that is to blame. If democracy is to survive the
ambitions of the powerful, a system of checks and balances must exist.
The free press is one of the most important of these checks.
Democracy cannot
thrive without an independent press. Every despot knows this, which is
why the media is always one of the first things to be nationalized in a
totalitarian state.
Furthermore, if there is ever a question of whether to err on the side of censorship or freedom, freedom should win out.
It is important to stop terrorists from desroying our way of life. But it is also important that we do not destroy it for them.
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