The Bu$h malAdministration has perpetrated many atrocities on a helpless citizenry, just about always enabled by a supine print and electronic media. They have enabled and abetted Mr Bush in his incessant drive to destroy the America envisioned by those who founded this nation, and to deliver its residents into the hands of a corporate fascism that is inconceivable in its lack of compassion and humanity. In the George Bush view of the world, we are all sheep and he wants the wolves to be our shepherds.

Over the years the only weapon that the common citizens used to have was the public outrage of the press pouring light and fresh air on the various scandals and conspiracies of government. And now George Bush, obviously fearing further exposure of the rot and stink of corruption in his rule, has declared war on any member of the press who dares to tell the truth. The NY Times, which has wavered over the last 6 years in its defense of liberty, presents today:

Earlier administrations have fired and prosecuted government officials who provided classified information to the press. They have also tried to force reporters to identify their sources.

But the Bush administration is exploring a more radical measure to protect information it says is vital to national security: the criminal prosecution of reporters under the espionage laws.

Such an approach would signal a thorough revision of the informal rules of engagement that have governed the relationship between the press and the government for many decades. Leaking in Washington is commonplace and typically entails tolerable risks for government officials and, at worst, the possibility of subpoenas to journalists seeking the identities of sources.

Does it need to be said that in George Bush’s world “national security” has come to mean “George Bush’s secrecy”? He has a lot of plans and there is the ever-present fear that revelation of them would bring people out into the streets in millions to protest, to stand up on their hind legs and scream out “No MORE!” Historically it was the print media that functioned as the shield and sword that protected citizens in a democracy from evil and corrupt rulers.

But the Bush administration is putting pressure on the press as never before, and it is operating in a judicial climate that seems increasingly receptive to constraints on journalists.

Freedom of the press in the United States from the actions and trial of a newspaper printer in New York named Pete Zenger. In 1733 he began publishing a broadside paper, the New York Weekly Journal. One of his first targets was the Royal Governor, William Cosby. And he was savage.

In November, 1734, Cosby ordered Zenger arrested, and held for trial on the charge of seditious libel. Zenger was held in prison for about eight months before his trial, probably as a method of softening him up, although the historical record is silent on the delay. Cosby had removed the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and replaced him with someone he knew would be more compliant with his policies and demands.

Zenger was represented by Alexander Hamilton, who found the new Chief Justice, James Delancey so outrageously prejudiced in favor of the Royal Governor that he pled the case directly to the jury. The jury deliberated a very short period and then returned a verdict of not guilty, thereby exonerating Zenger.

One of the principles of law established in American law is that a statement, cannot be considered libelous, no matter how extreme and defamatory, if it can be proven to be true. The writers John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon penned the following editorial:

"But this Doctrine ('A lible [sic] is not less a Libel for being true') only holds true as to private and personal failings; and it is quite otherwise when the Crimes of Men come to Affect the Publick.[sic] .Every Crime against the publick, is a great crime?. The exposing therefore of Publick Wickedness, as it is a Duty which every Man owes to the Truth and his Country, can never be a Libel in the Nature of Things. [I]t has been hitherto generally understood, that there was no other Libels but those against Magistrates and those against private Men. Now to me there seems to be a Third set of Libels, full[y] as Destructive as any of the former can probably be, I mean Libels against the People. I have indeed often wondered that the Inveighing against the Interest of the People, and calling their Liberty in[to] Question has never been made an express Crime. I know not what Reason is if sapping and betraying the Liberties of a People be not Treason. [A]lmost all over the Earth, the People for one Injury they do their Governor, receive Ten Thousand from them. Nay, in some Countries it is made Death and Damnation, not to bear all the Oppression and Cruelties, which Men made Wanton by Power inflict upon those that gave it them."

I have taken the original printed article and cleaned it up slightly, changing some of the archaic word forms in use in the early 18th century. But the words ring true, don’t they? Isn’t this what we’ve been accustomed to?

The NY Times again:

It is not easy to gauge whether the administration will move beyond these efforts to criminal prosecutions of reporters. In public statements and court papers, administration officials have said the law allows such prosecutions and that they will use their prosecutorial discretion in this area judiciously. But there is no indication that a decision to begin such a prosecution has been made. A Justice Department spokeswoman, Tasia Scolinos, declined to comment on Friday.

Because such prosecutions of reporters are unknown, they are widely thought inconceivable. But legal experts say that existing laws may well allow holding the press to account criminally. Should the administration pursue the matter, these experts say, it could gain a tool that would thoroughly alter the balance of power between the government and the press.

The administration and its allies say that all avenues must be explored to ensure that vital national security information does not fall into the hands of the nation's enemies.

Readers will quickly note that it is not a violation of “national security” when George Bush, or one of his minions, releases sensitive or classified information for political advantage, but it is most certainly so when someone whispers a damning bit of truth in the ear of a reporter. And the pro forma ‘no comment’ from a Justice Department representative signals that such a strategy is now being geared up. Above all else Bu$hCo fears loss of the Congressional majority that has allowed him to perpetrate what he has done so far.

"Once you make the press the defendant rather than the leaker," said David Rudenstine, the dean of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York and a First Amendment scholar, "you really shut down the flow of information because the government will always know who the defendant is."

The Bush Personality Cult continues its inexorable march toward totalitarian dictatorship. Obviously he wants a news industry that resembles the Soviet Union, or Hitler’s Germany, circa 1941.