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Censorship: It's Not Just For Web Sites
rares passed on to us this story from APBNews.com which ought to give pause to all readers: It seems that in Illinois, a revised set of guidelines for professional conduct of police (the guidelines are here in PDF) was issued by the state's Supreme Court. Though the guidelines are not state law, they have led to a sudden drop in the availability of formerly routine information available to the public, including newspapers, about police activities. Question is, whose rights are being respected here, and whose lost? What other formerly public information might soon be at risk -- and should all of it have been public in the first place? Interestingly, the word "censorship" appears only twice in the article.
"Just as it's not my job to make it easier for the police to investigate a crime, it's not the police's job to make it easier for reporters to cover stories."
That's exactly what a cop's job is. That's one of the things that seperate us (The US) from countries like China. The Police in the US are public servants. They are accountable to the pubic .
I know from personal experince what can happen when we lose rights to make our police publicly accountable.
In Florida (as in some other states) we are at "war" with drugs. I did not fully understand what that ment till my local police department did an armed raid on my house. Because they they did not arrest or charge anyone (or find anything ilegal)
we cannot force them to release the search warrent info. We could force them only if they charged me or my family with a crime because only then would they have to prove grounds for a search warrant
Because no one was hurt (although getting thrown to the ground and a shotgun put to your head is a little trumatic) We cannot sue them for damages.
Police not having to report and account for what they do is a BAD THING.
AdFuel
Censorship is something that the government does to you. Individuals (Taco, myself, you) or companies (Andover, Enquirer) can do whatever they want with their property.
Just because Taco lets us use his server doesn't give us any special rights. We're just lucky that he uses democratic moderation instead of monarchistic.
Good god people. IT'S NOT CENSORSHIP!!
I don't know when it happened, but censorship is not a catchall word describing everything to do with Stuff We Don't Like.
Nothing was censored here. No jack booted thugs busted into a local newspaper and smashed the presses. No threats of legal prosecutions were made, no fines for publication. IN OTHER WORDS, NO CENSORSHIP. The courts didn't make reporting crimes illegal, the police didn't beat crime reports with a batton. IN OTHER WORDS, NO CENSORSHIP. There was no prior restraint, no time place and manner restrictions, no content restrictions.
Aside from the sensationalist yellow journalism on Slashdot (something which NEEDS to be censored) what happened here was this:
The police no longer have to be as complete when reporting crime statistics to media.
THAT'S *NOT* censorship.
No sig is worth reading.
What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? When you publicize the name of someone *accused* of a crime, who hasn't been convicted, you're throwing that out the window. If you think people who are arrested are always guilty, you're deluding yourself. If you think people who may or may not have committed crimes should be paraded through the press by name--and the press *always* assume guilt, and see things in the worst possible light--I'd like to kick your ass. Proverbially, of course. I'm not saying that because I'm trying to be flamebait, I'm saying it because I'm mad and I have a right to be. Here's why:
Senior year of high school, I was as happy as a geek could be. I had a close circle of fine friends, and an active social life, and I'd been accepted early decision to the college of my choice. Best of all, I had my first real girlfriend. She was a HS junior, a fellow member of the academic team, and as gorgeous as she was smart. She was everything I'd wanted. Guess what ruined it? Her dad had me arrested on a serious-sounding felony charge, just because after going out for many months we fooled around as teenagers do and one time we took some risque photos of ourselves. We were two teenage kids experimenting, nothing serious or wrong, and I got arrested for felony production of child porn for playfully taking a few nude pictures of a girl who was just a year and a half younger than I was. It didn't matter that she'd had ten times the experience that I'd had, that I'd been a virgin and she'd been with three guys before me, or that everything was done between a boyfriend and girlfriend who loved each other in that sickeningly sweet adolescent way, all that mattered was a number. The justice system isn't about justice anymore, it's just about law without using common sense. Guess what the headline was in the next issue of the local paper? "Local man arrsted for making child pornography." A silly adolescent experiement for private use between 2 people, and suddenly the police and the press put me on the same level as some sick child molesting freak. They printed my full name and address, those worthless press bastards. They did this to a HS student who just barely turned 18. Instead of her name, they listed my girlfriend as "the victim" because by chance she was a year and a half younger than me. "The victim," as if I'd abused her in some way. The judge had common sense enough to dismiss the case, but by that time my future college read the article and it took a lot of explaining to avoid getting my admission revoked. Never mind that it's enough to have to deal with being accused of a serious felony like that, without your name and address printed in the paper for the world to see whether you deserve it or not.
Fuck the irresponsible press, they have no right to know when you haven't even had your day in court yet. Innocent until proven guilty left the legal system about the same time justice did. Americans should start caring about freedom more. Think about these quotes before whining about what the press ought to be told about *accused*, rather than convicted, people:
"Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."--Thomas Jefferson
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."--Benjamin Franklin - 1759
"The American people must be willing to give up a degree of personal privacy in exchange for safety and security."--FBI Director Louis Freeh - 1994
"Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secured."--Thomas Paine, 1791
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
It's not like the judge is preventing the newspapers from reporting information. It's not the case that the police are being forced to be silent.
What's happening here is that the police have voluntarily decided not to give out this information, and the newspapers are pissed that they can't sell crime any more. Hey, bad news sells newspapers, and if they can't get the bad news, they can't get the paper! This has nothing to do with the First Amendment and everything to do with the media's bottom lines.
It's all about greenbacks.
This is great news, if you ask me. The media takes great delight in making and breaking heroes and zeros by basically being highly-paid ambulance-chasers. Consider the story of Chuck Jewell and the Atlanta bombing. That wasn't news; that was libel. The media made him into the criminal (with prodding from the police) without a trial.
This forces newspapers and TV stations to get involved with a story if they want to cover it. No longer can they just skim the surface, quickly condemn whoever looks guilty and call it a done deal. Now they have to actually do some investigation and REAL JOURNALISM to get facts to sell their papers! How novel.
There's a big difference between what's happening in Illinois and what's happening with things like the CDA from a couple of years ago; the difference is, the police chose this route. We just have a lot of publishers about to lose their bread-and-butter business, and so they're crying about it.
Let them cry.