Withholding Rights to Our Information

Withholding Rights to Our Information

http://www.projectcensored.org/withholding-rights-to-our-information-2/

http://www.ghananewsagency.org/assets/images/right-to-information-bill.jpg

    According to the article, which draws from both established writers Gary Pruitt and Michael Felberbaum at mediachannel.org and mcclatchydc.com, as citizens of the United States, we should have the right to know what is going on with reagrds to information that the government would otherwise classify as secret or sensitive. When all things are considered, the real question to ask is “is the government really protecting us by withholding information?” Which leads to another question of “what exactly is the government hiding from us?”   


   
The article makes a point how “our government isn’t forthcoming with knowledge of controversial topics,” where technically speaking, being on the same page as far as public enlightenment of information goes would be mutually beneficial. Through informed judgements forthcoming from the people, our government would gain insight into how the general population would react to certain situations and would furthermore have the ability to execute decisions with the nation's general interests in mind.


Not only should the government regulate and give us access to all information, but also should allow it to become a much easier process to receive specific documentations of which hold certain importance. According to the writers, accessing information is difficult to come by in the modern United States. This due to the charging of thousands of dollars just to see and/or find the truth. The authorities have been keeping information from the public for quite a while now, for example, in a Florida case, the Broward county Sheriff’s Department charged $399,000 to receive emails that contained bad words for homosexuals. This process also took four years, proving the daunting task that regulating information to the public is today.


By filtering in and out what information they feel is important to the public, the government is taking away our rights as citizens gaining way to the truth. They must conclude treating us as objects that are manipulated instead of people who have their own minds. Our country is left vulnerable and the people critical of the government, thus, it should be left to us to decide for ourselves whether to learn of something or not. We must support our country's name of being “united” and begin to act less of the people against the government and as one nation under God.