March 28, 2003
WE LOST THE REPUBLIC, BUT SAVED PART OF ONE AMENDMENT TEMPORARILY!:
Al-Jazeera Web Site Faces Continued Hacker Attacks (Reuters, March 27, 2003)Hacker attacks continued to plague the Web site of Arab satellite TV network al-Jazeera on Thursday, as cyber-vandals replaced the news site with a stars-and-stripes logo saying "Let Freedom Ring".Both the Arabic site, at (http://www.aljazeera.net), and the English-language version at (http://english.aljazeera.net) could not be accessed Thursday. Users who tried to log onto the site found a message that read, "Hacked by Patriot, Freedom Cyber Force Militia" beneath a logo containing the U.S. flag.
"This broadcast was brought to you by: Freedom Cyber Force Militia," the site said. "God bless our troops!!!"
Libertarians and civil libertarians--the former are broadly of the Right, the latter of the Left--never sound more foolish than when they insist on the absolute nature of rights that were never intended to be ends in themselves but merely means to a greater end. Thus we have a right to freedom of the press not because there's anything intrinsically worthwhile in a free press but because the Founders, in their wisdoom, understood it to be important for a competing institution to be able to hold the State accountable. This is one of the means they created of ensuring that our own government does not become too great a threat to our freedom, that freedom which allows us to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice and all the rest.
But the press too is an institution and can become a threat to our freedom and when it does so it is appropriate to deal with it accordingly. To do otherwise it to elevate the means above the ends. And where, as in the case of al-Jazeera, you have a press that--whether directly or indirectly--serves the purposes of terrorists and terror states with whom we are at war, the suggestion that they are entitled to full freedom is simply absurd. It is comparable to complaining that patriots were shredding Der Angriff during WWII. We should, in fact, make al-Jazeera a military target, just as would any other enemy propaganda operation in time of war.
The willingness to accept risks to the very existence of the Union in order to fetishize subsidiary rights that it protects, but which it need protect only where they perfect the Union, is an almost suicidal instance of putting the cart before the ass. If folks succeed in protecting al-Jazeera from interference at the cost of letting it spread the lies of Osama and Saddam until the Arab world is whipped into a homicidal frenzy and we end up in an ever widening war, who will thank them for their actions?
Posted by Orrin Judd at March 28, 2003 8:59 AMI don't know why you turned this report into an attack on libertarians. I am a libertarian and I have no problem with the idea of attacking Arab propaganda sites. This is wartime, not playtime. If the world was in a state of relative peace, I'd have a different opinion. But it's not and I don't. Would love to hear what other libertarians think.
Posted by: Ann Northcutt Gray at March 28, 2003 11:11 AMAnn:
Take a look at some of the other blogs and there's an unthinking reflexive support for al-Jazeera's "right" to be free from attack.
Ms. Gray;
As a hard core libertarian I am ok with these actions. I consider Al Jazeera to be an enemy combatant. One thing that I believe is that ultimately, rights must be reciprocal. Those who chose to disregard the rules of civilization must also forfeit its protections. They are barbarians and should be treated as such.
AOG: "I consider Al Jazeera to be an enemy combatant. One thing that I believe is that ultimately, rights must be reciprocal. Those who chose to disregard the rules of civilization must also forfeit its protections."
I agree completely. And I'm on the verge of applying this to the BBC as well. My husband and I just returned from a 2-week trip to Ireland (with a night spent in Paris.) The BBC's coverage of this action is simply disgusting. They are lying outright.