When I began following free speech controversies, I was a First Amendment absolutist. Now I’m something less comfortable. I still think free speech is a good idea, certainly better than alternatives I’ve come across, but I’ve learned that everyone has a line that can’t be crossed, a word that sticks in the craw, an image that feels like a kick to the gut. The First Amendment, bless its little heart, always eventually lets us down (self-protection is innate, tolerance an acquired taste), so how can I not be bothered by its limitations?

This is a running log of arguments over free speech – some silly, some funny, some hard -- because free speech is all about argument. Being able to speak our mind makes us feel good and it's essential to real democracy and fairness. Yet, in the end, one of the best reasons to keep our speech rights intact is that we miss them when they’re gone.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

domestic surveillance? enemies list? la plus ca change -- et continue, bien sur

       In the we're-not-surprised and they-should-be-ashamed categories:  Someone found out that under the Bush administration, the CIA went after Juan Cole, who attacked the war in Iraq, among other misbegotten policies, on his blog, Informed Consent.  The CIA claims to be able to find no record of such surveillance, and Cole assumes he wasn't alone as a target.  All very familiar.  And depressing. 
       And continuing more publicly under the Obama administration in its aggressive prosecutions of government whistleblowers, including Tom Drake (ex-NSA), Jeffrey Sterling (ex-CIA), Steven Kim (State), Shamai Leibowitz (ex-FBI), and Bradley Manning, whose current status is unclear while the Army stashes him away in Leavenworth and the government figures out what they want to do about him, and through him, about WikiLeaks Julian Assange.
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