Taking Action

British Prime Minister David Cameron said recently that his government was likely to act to stop newspapers publishing of what he called damaging leaks from former U.S. intelligence operative Edward Snowden (below) unless they began to behave more responsibly.

"If they (newspapers) don't demonstrate some social responsibility it will be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act," Cameron told parliament, saying Britain's Guardian newspaper had "gone on" to print damaging material after initially agreeing to destroy other sensitive data.

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist responsible for the bulk of these stories about the NSA leaks, called the move "repressive."  "In repressive Britain, it's political officials who dictate what can and cannot be published," he wrote on Twitter.

re·pres·sive means:

adjective: repressive

(esp. of a social or political system) inhibiting or restraining the freedom of a person or group of people.  For example, "a repressive regime."

Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take part in the political life of a society. Political repression is sometimes used synonymous with the term political discrimination (also known as politicism). It often is manifested through discriminatory policies, such as human rights violations, surveillance abuse, police brutality, imprisonment, involuntary settlement, stripping of citizen's rights, lustration and violent action or terror such as the murder, summary executions, torture, forced disappearance and other extrajudicial punishment of political activists, dissidents, or general population. BUT, is this what Mr. Greenwald is talking about?  I doubt it… As a reporter, Mr. Greenwald et al want to be able to write about anything they deem to be in the interest of the general public no matter what the unintended consequences of their actions might be…   And that my friends, is something altogether different than responsible journalism, in my humble opinion. Throughout the course of history, at least in the books that I have read, the general public is not ready nor are they prepared to hear or understand or fully appreciate the sensitivity of the truth even though there are a few that are…  and, therein lies the problem. Teach the general public to understand before you throw them to the wolves of fear, confusion, and outrage.  So many of the general public just want to be left alone and told what to do like what was depicted in The Matrix, comfortable with their pointless lives, their pointless needs and wants, and their beliefs that it will all continue because it was always meant to be this way. They (We) don’t want   your TRUTHS…