Blog Post #12

 After the discussion we had in class regarding the free flow of information n, it really got me thinking about how secretive our government is. Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that our government is no stranger when it comes to keeping secrets and hiding things from the public eye, some of these things of which the public deserves to know about or be aware of, but the lecture really got me thinking about it, and to be honest with you, it kinda scares me.

    A topic that really surprised me during our discussion was the lengths of what the government would get to in order to keep their secrets classified from the public, especially when they're dealing with certain outsiders like third-party publishers, persistent journalists, and whistleblowers. I now have a bit of an appreciation for whistleblowers like Daniel Ellsberg as the government certainly lies to the public to cover up some classified information, and those types of people want to seek the truth in all those lies and bring the truth out to the public, as they believe that we the people have every right to know what is going on in our world. However, the government's measures they take in order to "silence" those people are a bit too extreme.

    A perfect example of how the government goes to try and silence whistleblowers using such cruel and unnecessary measures would be the arrest of Julian Assange. The government considers him a criminal who needs to be held accountable by the law, while others consider him a hero who's just utilizing his first amendment rights against national security in order to bring the truth to the public. This debate was heated up after his arrest and started after he published thousands of pages of secret government documents. The way they treated him was probably a method used to silence potential whistleblowers. Though he still dealing with legal issues, I feel with the first amendment, he may be able to pull through in the end, but only time will tell.