Press freedom is human freedom
At the core of a functioning democracy is the unalienable right to access, share, and act on facts and evidence. Open access to reporting without fear or favor is a right that secures all others.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects the freedom of the press, because without solid evidence-based knowledge of fact, no human mind is sovereign, and genuine self-government cannot become common practice. The First Amendment commits all levers of power in the United States to safeguarding not only fundamental rights, but the freedom of people to exist (and organize) in their diversity, to contest ideas, and to criticize power, with an army of fact-gatherers on their side.
The text reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It important to carefully parse the phrasing, to identify the five different sweeping protections granted by this one sentence:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”;
“Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech…”
“Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom… of the press…”
“Congress shall make no law… abridging… the right of the people peaceably to assemble…”
“Congress shall make no law… abridging… the right of the people… to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
These rights are bundled together, because each one is key to upholding the others. American government is structured, by law, in a way that is designed to ensure rights have primacy over power:
Congress is the Article I branch of government, because after the Constitution, all laws must be made by Congress, where the people are most directly represented in the structure of the federal government.
The Executive is outlined in Article II and has only that authority explicitly and specifically granted by the Constitution or by laws written by the People’s representatives in Congress.
The Judiciary is the Article III branch, because it must oversee both of the other branches, to ensure all laws and all executive actions abide by the Constitution.
In the 1801 ruling in the case of Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court made clear that all laws and executive actions are subject to judicial review and must pass that test to be lawful.
The Bill of Rights and subsequent Amendments to the Constitution further establish that rights have primacy over power, even that rights need not be written into law to be protected by the Constitution.
The unprecedented attempt to ban the use of specific words and phrases, and to punish anyone using those words, regardless of the context, has been described as an attempt to establish totalitarian rule as a new norm in American government. Specific cases vary, but there are several glaring realities that demand to be addressed by the rule of law:
Grants are being denied or cancelled based on whether a specific list of banned words appears in the grant application or reports authored by people linked to the grant. This includes funding for cancer research that includes words like “women”, “gender”, and “inclusion”.
The President has asked the Attorney General (formerly his personal lawyer) to investigate the possibility of prosecuting private companies or institutions that invest in diversity, equity, and inclusion, to improve their operations, innovation capacity, and team dynamics.
Entire agencies are being targeted for “deletion” as retaliation for their focus on “justice”, which the new administration considers to be a suspect activity—though the Constitution says the republic exists to “establish Justice” and explicitly protects the right to redress.
The President is persecuting press outlets for not using the words and phrases he wants them to use. This includes retaliation against TV networks for covering his opponent and against the Associated Press for accurately reporting the name of the Gulf of Mexico, an international body of water Donald Trump does not have authority to rename.
Harassment of people who report facts and evidence makes it harder for professionals in all fields to access sound information and act responsibly. Persecution and removal of civil servants for use of words that accurately describe their lawful advancement of Constitutional rights protections—which have primacy over the whims of any powerful individual—undermines the quality of public services.
After Trump began harassing the Federal Aviation Administration—and removed its director at the request of Elon Musk, who was being investigated for violating aviation safety standards—there were three deadly aviation disasters in 10 days (after the U.S. went two decades without one). More crashes, near misses, and major incidents (like the flipping over of a Delta jet landing in Toronto) have happened since.
In 2018, the sitting President of the United States made clear his intention to attack, harass, impugn, and punish those who criticize his misuse of office.
In response to this, and to the nation’s newspaper editorial boards, the United States Senate unanimously passed a resolution pledging to uphold and defend freedom of the press. Both the Supreme Court and the United States Senate made clear they will not recognize unreviewable powers or executive overreach aimed at punishing dissent.
Trump’s actions then put the country at risk in other ways as well. Russian hackers were found to be targeting Republican institutions that criticized Trump or the Kremlin. Retired intelligence officials said at the time there was a clear, and escalating, effort by Russian spy agencies to circumvent, pre-empt, punish, and stamp out dissent in the United States.
Writing in the The Kansas City Star on May 7, 1918, former President Theodore Roosevelt defended the inherent patriotism of citizens and media questioning the actions of the President:
The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.
Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.
Demand in every moment, in every interaction, that everyone who serves in public office, adhere to the sanctity of the right to know and deal in truth, without exception. Everything depends on it.
Notes on our political moment:
