William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

Seeing Newt Gingrich glow when speaking - at a dinner honoring free speech - about curtailing freedom of speech in the United States due to terrorist threats, it drives the point home - those who do believe in free speech need to fight with their every fiber to keep the Internet a bastion of free ideas and thought.

It’s why when I see stories like “Crime 101: YouTube’s How-To Guide to Delinquency” from Fox News, I get a jolt in my gut. Fox News does the government’s bidding, or at least the authoritarian side of the government. The side that would rather see the workers and masses quiet, fearful and docile.

When it launched its Web site in December 2005, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen said the site’s technology ensured “that watching and sharing videos is fast and fun.”

But FOXNews.com found videos that law enforcement officials might find unsavory, including how-to’s on computer, bicycle and car theft — and, a special video on stealing coffee from the grocery store.

I’m a boxing fan, and have long admired fighters who are willing to work the other man’s body. Body shots will wear down a fighter, it just takes some patience and dedication. Stories like this are the body shots that will be and have been raining down on the Internet.

“We have such a broad commitment to the First Amendment and to free expression. I mean we even allow Web sites that talk about how to make an atomic bomb and have all kinds of information about explosives,” said James B. Jacobs, a law professor at New York University. “You know, democracy is a dangerous business and free speech is a dangerous business. I doubt that there is anyway you could impose criminal penalties on stuff like that.”

We have at our disposal the greatest collection of information at our fingertips. We don’t have the bullhorn that the corporate media has, but we have this. This pulpit which allows us to scream into the void, knowing at very least that someone somewhere will hear. And as the mid-term elections showed, the screaming can turn into a roar.

But they will take this final pulpit away if we let them. They will continue to work the body. And we need to stand up to it. Fighting to keep our free speech is a dangerous business, but we must keep up the fight.

–WKW

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 5:56 pm and is filed under Life and Such, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.