I don't usually write 'political' stuff in my blog. Frankly I'm shy about it since I'm not a liberal but neither am I a neo-con right winger. In many ways I guess I'm mostly Libertarian although I do believe in a bit more government than a lot of them. But today I have to talk about something kind of political.
I get CNet news alerts in my email daily. I feel a need to stay on top of certain techie news because of my job at a high tech company. Today I got a news alert and the headline was "Blogging to be Free" by Curt Hopkins, director and founder of the Committee to Protect Bloggers.
I found my self nodding my head when I read, "Newspapers, even individual Web sites, are relatively easy to shut down. But what can't be shut down is a self-perpetuating system like the blogosphere. What our experience has shown is not that a single organization, the Committee to Protect Bloggers, is a threat to tyrants, but that blogging itself is. Blogging's culture of sharing, quoting and linking has created a radical redundancy for powerful ideas." I've mentioned here and there about my fascination with the communities of interest being built in the blogosphere and even though my circle of online acquaintances, i.e. my community, might be somewhat small they have online friends who blog who have online friends who blog, etc., nearly ad infinitum.
It's an article well worth reading. If you are anything like me, you take your freedom of speech pretty much for granted. Then something comes along and pokes you in the brain making you realize all over again how precious and fragile that right is. It comes as no surprise to me that bloggers in Iran or China or other very authoritarian societies might be repressed, arrested and even imprisoned for having an opinion that isn't in line with the government. What we should all be worried about is the potential that those freedoms can be erroded here in the US or in England, Austrailia, France, Japan, etc.
Cases of bloggers who are fired for blogging about their jobs are examples of the erosion. I've seen arguments about this but bottom line in my "I am not a lawyer" opinion is unless I've signed a contract or sworn an oath to my employer that compels me to silence about some or all aspects of my work it is my right under the First Amendment to speak about it without fear of retribution. Now if they want to fire me because I'm blogging *at* work on their nickel that's another story, they have the right to ask me to give them an honest day's labor for a paycheck. Or if I reveal trade secrets or proprietary intellectual property, I've signed an agreement that I won't do that so they have the right to fire me if I do. But if I write something negative about the environment or culture, that to me is no cause for termination and should be fought to the Supreme Court.
You'll note that I'm not saying anything about the current state of affairs vis a vis the Patriot Act, etc. In two years there is going to be a change of adminstrations. I think there will be some changes in 2008 if not leading up to it as politicians try to smooth the runway for a good takeoff. I'd like to see the system work this time around. If not, well, there will be plenty of blogging about it.
Posted by Dawno at August 18, 2005 06:00 AM