Censorship Post 9/11
Cullen Irons
Athanasakkis
Writing 2
Censored in America: Post 9/11 Censorship and the Bush Administration
Censorship is not a new concept and is probably as old as the beginnings of communication itself. Governments have always kept information from the public, often in the interest of national security. Censorship has also been used to silence opposition to the government. In the past it seemed that this was common practice in other countries; usually non-democratic countries like the former Soviet Union or places with power hungry, tyrannical dictators who must take such measures to maintain control of the people. In recent years America has become the victim of this practice as our president, George W. Bush, has gone to great lengths to keep certain information, even information and records that were previously freely available to the general public, out of the mainstream. The Bush Administration has enforced a strict censorship policy via the Patriot Act and extreme limiting of the Freedom of Information Act, using 9/11 and its duty to protect the U.S. from terrorism as the reason.
Censorship is the action of any person or group controlling what can and cannot be viewed, read, or used by the public. Censorship is not limited to national or state governments, but is found in our schools, on the internet, in our libraries, and even in our families. If parents adjust settings on their televisions to prevent their children from seeing a certain program, they are censoring what their children see and hear. When schools ban a particular text from their libraries, they are exercising censorship. Those forms of censorship are usually attempted in the name of morality, whereas governments’ purpose is much more insidious. In the case of the Bush Administration there is a clear power grab—our government wants to hide or distort information to further its own agenda, which is clearly not in the best interest of the American people and which
Athanasakkis
Writing 2
Censored in America: Post 9/11 Censorship and the Bush Administration
Censorship is not a new concept and is probably as old as the beginnings of communication itself. Governments have always kept information from the public, often in the interest of national security. Censorship has also been used to silence opposition to the government. In the past it seemed that this was common practice in other countries; usually non-democratic countries like the former Soviet Union or places with power hungry, tyrannical dictators who must take such measures to maintain control of the people. In recent years America has become the victim of this practice as our president, George W. Bush, has gone to great lengths to keep certain information, even information and records that were previously freely available to the general public, out of the mainstream. The Bush Administration has enforced a strict censorship policy via the Patriot Act and extreme limiting of the Freedom of Information Act, using 9/11 and its duty to protect the U.S. from terrorism as the reason.
Censorship is the action of any person or group controlling what can and cannot be viewed, read, or used by the public. Censorship is not limited to national or state governments, but is found in our schools, on the internet, in our libraries, and even in our families. If parents adjust settings on their televisions to prevent their children from seeing a certain program, they are censoring what their children see and hear. When schools ban a particular text from their libraries, they are exercising censorship. Those forms of censorship are usually attempted in the name of morality, whereas governments’ purpose is much more insidious. In the case of the Bush Administration there is a clear power grab—our government wants to hide or distort information to further its own agenda, which is clearly not in the best interest of the American people and which
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