America's freedom of press takes a hit

Here in the U.S., our constitution starts with our most important and most complex article, called the First Amendment. Written in 1781, these are the first words of the most important manuscript our forefathers wrote. Sadly, it is the most neglected of our constitutions, particularly neglected by some of our own government leaders.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Freedom of the press sounds pretty straight forward and simple, right? One of the things our government can't restrict or restrain is the media's right to information and the right to get that information to the people.

To fortify this we have in the U.S. a thing called the Freedom of Information Act, which is designed to keep governments, industries and entities from hiding information they don't want public. And if they won't release information that is requested they can be taken to court and forced to release it.

Bad news: In some states of the United States - my state of Texas most recently this year - there were new laws passed giving the government a way around the Freedom of Information Act to keep information from getting to the media.

You see, if it were not for the First Amendment, comprehensive reporting, hardworking reporters, and the Freedom of Information Act, the public would be left to know only what their leaders want them to believe.

These states passed a new law that, win or loose, the newspaper will pay the court costs, which can run into the tens of thousand of dollars. In some instances, the newspaper is even being sued for filing a Freedom of Information Act. Sadly, this is working because small or medium newspapers do not have the money or staff to endure a long court battle.

As Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times points out in the following article, “The government wants to do its business in secret, and increasingly there’s no press left to stop them.” Here is one of the real live incidents where the government is stopping information from getting to the public, as reported in the Seattle Times.