Sunshine Week

Sunshine Week. There could not be a more appropriate time to write a bitter diatribe about the U.S. government. Although some of us would like to dedicate an entire month only for this objective, Sunshine Week is not quite intended for this. These seven days (March 13-19) have been set aside for the main purpose of allowing journalists and other members of the public to recognize, appreciate, and exercise free speech and press; unalienable rights our founding fathers struggled to bequeath to us.

Since the creation of our government the media has inevitably evolved into an unofficial fourth branch of government. In many ways, the press can be viewed as a medium through which the American public can check the federal government of its power. It has become an investigative sector which provides the general public with information regarding all aspects of their lives. Through the broadcasting of government actions and procedures, it allows for for nation wide approval or condemnation.

John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon were thinking about all this back in 1720 when they wrote a series of letters to the editors of the London Journal and British Journal concerning the role of free speech and press under a popular sovereignty. The pair wrote under the pseudonym “Cato” ; their work would become known as “Cato’s Letters”. Letter number fifteen says: “That Men ought to speak well of their Governors, is true, while their Governors deserve to be well spoken of; but to do publick Mischief, without hearing of it, is only the Prerogative and Felicity of Tyranny: A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their Freedom of Speech.” Think of how this quote applies to American politics today:

Recent accusations have been made by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) regarding the unwillingness of the federal government to relinquish important information, justifying it as a matter of “national security”. After 911, it is understandable that our national security is first priority and that as a country we need to be more cautious; however this does not give the government the right to parade along how ever they please. To prevent this from happening, the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 called for journalists, researchers, and members of the public to have access to most government records produced by the executive branch. The current administration is undermining the law, and in a direct response the ACLU is currently involved in a lawsuit against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department. The ACLU claims that the administration withheld information concerning the CIA’s involvement in the torture of foreign detainees.

This should raise a lot of questions for the American public. If there is evidence that the federal government is withholding public information to cover up their illegal procedures, then what else could they be hiding? Has our government gotten so powerful that it are beginning to run not only our nation but the world too? Is this current quest to spread democracy any different from the Soviet Union’s wish to spread communism? Has President Bush ultimately become a dictator of democracy?

Whether or not these questions are too extreme, someone needs to ask them. Sunshine Week celebrates our freedom to question the conduct of our government, a right which makes the United States and other democratic nations strong world leaders. Some people cynically describe the media as that of an overzealous hawk canvassing the local area for its next victim; however I see it as a ray of light which shines onto the murky shadows of the forbidden and undiscovered. Regardless of how one feels about certain media establishments, the media as a whole is vital to our purity as a democratic institution.