Squashing protest? Not!

Green Peace is in federal court with the "sailor mongering" case (Protesters wary of new tactic by feds - Obscure 1872 law cited in case against Greenpeace. The case springs from two protesters who were arrested for attempting to hang and Bush protest sign on a cargo ship in April 2004. While the activits were released with time served, Ashcroft brought charges against Green Peace under an 1872 law that was to ban bars from luring sailors.

Yeah, I know it seems insane, but the message the feds are sending is clear - organizations need to keep a low profile or risk being hauled into court (even if they have to pull out a 230 year old law to do it). It is unlikely that the law suit will bankrupt Green Peace, but certainly smaller organizations might think twice.

On the other side, we have corporate media kudos for bloggers from USA Today - Freewheeling 'bloggers' are rewriting rules of journalism.

"Yet they're forcing the mainstream news media to follow the stories they're pushing, such as the scandal that took down Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.

Just a few years ago, blogs were relatively rare. Now there are millions. They're devoted to every topic imaginable, from knitting to dating to homelessness. But those who have had the most impact write about politics."

So on one hand we have the regime trying to silence folks in all kinds of ways, and on the other we have bloggers and the peoples' media. As noted in the USA Today article, there are "millions" of us and the only way to shut us up is to shut down the internet. My guess is they are not too likely to do that given corporate and commercial interests and investments.

The article confirms my thinking that when a story gets spread to a certain point then the corporate media have to say something. Too many people know, and it makes them look questionable to ignore it. It would be nice to know how they determine the tipping point for covering a story.

Posted by rowan at January 1, 2004 9:40 PM | TrackBack | [eMail this article!] |