Censorship in the Military

Screening and censoring the mail that soldiers send home is an age-old strategy used by most militaries around the world. The problem is that often times the government will edit or confiscate letters they feel pose a threat to the security of the war. The military should not be able to screen mail because the odds of one of the letters reaching enemy hands, and also containing useful information are too slim. It isn't fair to the soldiers, the families, or the American public because it denies them much desired information about a war that we are supposed to be supportive of.
Now that we are entering a new era where numerous messages are sent home to families over the internet, we have to decide whether or not those messages should be screened also. In truth these messages pose more of a threat because they are posted on the internet where insurgents can possibly get their hands on them and use them to disrupt the war effort. It is messages like these that should therefore be screened and possibly censored.
The reality is that the internet is not a very safe place to be putting important information that you don't want to be shared. Recently the army has adjusted a lot of the rules concerning how you can post things on the internet. The military believes that by reading enough of the e-mails or blogs that soldiers post, they may be able to construct an idea of what the military is doing. Therfore they fell that it is necessary to censor what soldiers post on the internet.

Internet Censorship

<http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/Censorship/notes.html>

Currently there is a huge controversy over what should and should not be made available to people over the internet. People want to maintain a level of morality without violating the first ammendment's freedoms. For instance, should someone be able to put instructions for making a bomb on the internet? Some people think so, and some don't. As the internet becomes more and more accessible, it continues to amass more and more controversial material. As it is now, almost anyone can put almost anything on the internet without worrying about the reprecussions. This makes it possible for people to publish oppinions that could be harmful to society. For instance if Charles Manson was able to publish blogs from his prison cell it might be detrimental to society, and it is material like that that i think should be censored.

Censorship History

Although censorship does exist to some degree in every country, it is worse in some than in others. "A government which censors the information available to its people, other than in a state of national emergency (e.g., a sudden attack by a hostile military force) is a government which seeks to keep the people in a state of ignorance, and should not complain if the people have no loyalty to it"(<www.serendipity.li/cda.html>).

A summary of James Bacque's intro to "Chapter 8 of Crimes and Mercies"

James Bacque was a writer and for most of his life he had "believed in the democratic system". He later realized that during World War 2 America had commited atrocities in Europe under the leadership of Eisenhower. Then he went to interview a star reporter for the "New York Times" who wrote during this period. His name was Drew Middleton and he had claimed to have visited a prison camp and came back and said everything was good there. Bacque exposed him confronting him with the fact that the US had been killing thousands. Middleton said, 'I'm not surprised that you were able to dig up some bad things from that time.' He then admitted to never actually visiting the prison camp. "What Middleton told me basically was that, yes, he had lied in 1945 and no, it did not matter to him or the New York Times if I exposed this." This was when Bacque realized the true extent of the media, especially the "New York Times", to cover the truth and keep America ignorant to one of the worst atrocities it's comiited this century.

Videogame censorhip

The issue with giving videogames explicit or mature ratings is that it is unfair to try and regulate in such a way that doesn't allow for people to purchase a game at a certain location. At certain stores if a game is rated mature, you must be 17 to buy the game. So some conservatives might argue that this is a triumph over such games as "Grand Theft Auto"or "Hitman", but when a 16 year old goes to a store to try and buy a game they have been waiting a long time to release, only to find that they have to go home without it, it's very unfair.

I think that censorship is an important issue in this country because it often seems like a violation of the first ammendment. Without the freedom to say what you want and express yourself you may feel supressed.