The Department of Justice’s latest attempt to derail the Free Flow of Information Act smacks of propaganda and spin-doctoring. On Thursday the DoJ launched a Web site dedicated to letters, testimony and other information urging that Congress kill the shield law. One letter by Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff says the shield law would make the United States “less secure and less free,” but we in the Society of Professional Journalists see it differently and feel strongly that a shield law will help maintain a free and open society.

What is more disturbing is that the Web site smacks of government-sponsored propaganda and taxpayer-funded brainwashing. It’s OK for citizens (such as myself) or a group (such as SPJ) to urge passage or failure of proposed legislation, but to have a government agency using its taxpayer-funded Web site to promote its cause is disconcerting. It’s not the first time in world history that a government has propagandized its own citizens, but most of us do not consider that acceptable in the land of the free. The Society of Professional Journalists feels strongly that a federal shield law is necessary to allow Americans to receive information they need to make informed decisions, and if we thought it would harm national security or allow terrorists to bomb our families we would not support it. The administration, however, is simply attempting to serve its own political purposes of avoiding criticism by thwarting this legislation. And going about it through this DoJ Web site is just plain wrong.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 6:42 pm and is filed under Politics, Civil Rights, Homeland Security, The Administration .