The websites Antiwar.com and TheAmericanConservative.com give insights into issues I don’t often see in the mainstream media. For example, Antiwar.com currently has reports on how President Trump’s increasing sanctions on Syria are causing more hardship for Syria’s long suffering citizens; and on Israel and the U.S. getting the International Atomic Energy Agency to pressure Iran for more information about its nuclear activity. The AmericanConservative.com features stories on the growing number of civilians in Somalia killed by U.S. military drone strikes; and on the U.S. cover-up of atrocities by American troops during the Korean War.
Those stories are clearly anti-war, but not every article is. Still, most stories on these websites are about international relations or U.S. actions overseas. Except for “The New York Times”and “The Washington Post,” the mainstream media doesn’t do much in-depth coverage of foreign news, including stories about U.S. military operations around the world. Two reasons for that: foreign stories are expensive to cover, and media companies think their readers and viewers are much more interested in domestic news. They may be right about that.
During the Progressive Era, hundreds of antiwar activists were thrown in jail for allegedly violating the Espionage Act. Today, the Espionage Act is still being used to silence people, especially whistleblowers who leak classified information to the media. In 2013, Army Private Chelsea Manning (then Bradley Manning) was convicted of violating the Espionage Act by giving classified videos and documents to the website wikileaks.com. Manning, who spent 7 years in prison, says she did it to expose atrocities committed by the U.S. military. That same year, Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee was indicted under the Espionage Act for leaking documents showing the U.S. government was spying on its own citizens. In 2018, Reality Winner, an Air Force translator, was sentenced to 5 years in prison for exposing Russian interference in U.S. elections.
Are these people whistleblowers, trying to hold the government accountable for bad actions, or are they true enemies of the United States, as the courts say? And what does all this mean for our 1st Amendment right of freedom of speech?
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