No censorship now???

A couple of days ago, while waiting for the parking lot attendant to come back from break (so I could get my car and drive home), I walked across the street to the courthouse just to kill time. There's a bronze mural there, a large rectangular slab, which has depictions of the Japanese internment cast on both its sides. I was thinking how far we had progressed since our country's reactions were more restrained to people who's only relation to 9/11 was their middle eastern and/or Islamic faith. Of course, I had to catch myself from so simple a misjudgement because I've heard enough of the goings on with the CIA and Guantanamo Bay to suspect that what I don't know due to censorship would make me lose sleep at night.

I comforted myself by reasoning that while the current administration may be guilty of grave acts, the American people, for the most part, have shown understanding and restraint. I think we all know that the acts of a few aren't reflective of the many. I hope my sentiment is shared by foreigners who weigh the actions of the current administration.

Not that we know what the administration is actually doing due to their liberal use of censorship. We seem to be more in the dark of the actions of our government than any other recent administration. Yes, government censorhsip has existed forever, but it hasn't been so brazen, so "in your face" for as long I can remember. We can look at the history of secrecy and censorship from administrations on both sides, but I can't think of another time when the pattern of censorship has been so frequent and so brazen as now.

Take Guantanamo Bay (please :^). The Khalid Sheik Muhammed trial is underway, but the military is severely limiting the reporting of the tribunal's proceedings. The military's argument is that testimony may reveal state intelligence gathering secrets in its presentation of facts. OK, so excuse the reporters then. Wait, wait, you say that all the incriminating facts come from compromisable human intelligence? That's too incredible to believe, especially when you consider you still haven't found Bin-Laden. Forgive my skepticism in trusting the government, but given its mismanagement of the war in Iraq and its almost comical defense of its indefensible actions, I take issue to its predilection to censorship.

Take the rampant redactions in Valerie Plame's book "Fair Game." The CIA's use of black marker would put my seven year old to shame. Its inconceivable that so many parts of a book can contain information critical to the nation's security. Granted, its a tell all book and its written by a spy with an axe to grind, but when you see redactions surrounding excerpts of her first days with her baby, it makes you wonder; did she pack an Uzzi in her diaper bag or have the CIA gone over the edge?

In retrospect, this censorship shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Within a short time of taking office, the White house ordered the return and re classification of documents from libraries of previous administrations, including those of Ronald Reagan and G. H. W. Bush. While one may argue if the reclassification of administration documents is or isn't censorship, you have to wonder about this administration when the Vice President's residence (the Naval Observatory) is redacted from Google Earth!