Freedom of the Press ?????

The 1st Amendment took a slight step down that slippery slope of freedom of the press yesterday. With the "chill in the air", Time Magazine decided to turn over the notes of one of its reporters Matt Cooper to the Federal Prosecuter. The prosecuter is investigating the leak of information that named a CIA agent....who will remain nameless here! Time said, "That in matters of National Security we are just like any other citizen." Tell Daniel Ellsberg that one.

Not since 1971 has the US Supreme Court been down this road of journalistic freedom. In the New York Times v. The United States, The Court decided that "prior restraint" had no place in a free society. It appears that in this "Post 9/11" World that a federal prosecutor may determine infront of a grand jury that "confidential sources" have no place in a free society.

Thomas Jefferson once said, "If I have to choose between no government and no press, I would assuredly choose the former not the latter." Similar to the assault on the Senate Filibuster, removing a freedom of the press safeguard for national security takes our nation down the road with one more step of putting us under the increasing control of the government. Being controlled by the government is fascism.

While the dominating words in the churches of the land will debate the removal of parishioners for voting for John Kerry, praying in school, gay men and women marrying, pro life, and war........let us not forget that bundled with the freedom of the press is also the free exercise of religion.......

If we want democracy, a republic, freedom and liberty, we as a nation of citizens must accept and protect the parameters of our democracy's rules and functional guidelines. If we assault them and remove them, then civil liberties will be lost. And so shall we.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/01/politics/01leak.html?pagewanted=print