Reflections on The First Amendment, Cairo and Wikileaks

I copied this one directly from The Tea Party of Georgia’s Website

One of the things that makes America a truly unique country is the First Amendment.

Enshrined as the very first and most important Amendment in the Bill of Rights is a statement that says quite clearly:

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.

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press….

Considering when this was written, in 1789, it was a remarkably revolutionary document.

No law means no law.

And the notion of a free and untrammeled press was something completely anathema to Britain, from whence the Founding Fathers had come  There, laws restricting the press, particularly with respect to comments about The Monarchy, were in full force.

So when the Constitution unleashed a free press, it was designed to be a weapon, actually, against those in power.

When the Constitution was written, a press was still a fairly complex and expensive bit of gear.  Benjamin Franklin, one of the drafters of the Constitution was also one of the most successful printers in the colonies. But it was not like everyone had access to a press.

Of course, today, through the miracle of technology, they do – and the notion of a press has gone far beyond ink and paper.

What you are seeing take place on the streets of Cairo – and no one can say either how, or where, it will end – is indeed a manifestation of a free press – the kind of Free Press that the Founders really envisioned – one that questions power.

The press does not mean The New York Times. The press means anyone…. and everyone.

This is why we don’t license journalists in this country.

Anyone with a cell phone and a camera is a journalist.

It is not by some government grant, nor by employment by a major corporation that one becomes a ‘journalist’.  The role of jouranlsit is self-appointed.  Thomas Paine did not work for any newspaper.

So when thousands take to the streets of Cairo, or Teheran, or Tunis and broadcast to the world what is happening, they are journalists.

And when Wikileaks publishes hitherto ‘secret’ cables, they are also journalists.

Are they ‘attacking’ those in power?

In both cases.. yes.

And that is exactly what the First Amendment is designed to protect.

And there is nothing more American, more fundamentally American, than the exercise of those rights.

Even if you live in Cairo.