The Right to Know

In an era of unprecedented government secrecy and an Orwelian manipulation of catch phrases such as Patriot, Support Our Troops, War on Terror, and Liberty it is helpful to look back in history and read what our founding fathers have to say about a government that chooses to keep the American people in the dark for its own ends.

"Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among people, who have a right...and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalieanble, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers...Let us...cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write...Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing."
- John Adams

I was not familiar with the word indefeasible. So, I looked it up. indefeasible: not defeasabele; not to be annulled or made void; not forfeitable.

Too many Americans are ignorant about our government's activities by choice. Getting informed is hard work. Big media is content to feed this ignorance with sensationalistic stories and by repeating official talking points with too little analysis and minimal truth seaking. Still it is the duty of the American people to demand our rights. By allowing our government and media driven culture to manipulate our fears and cover themselves in a shroud of secrecy, have "We the People" forfeited our Right to Know?

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