Adoxography.

Quite appropriate, meaning skilled writing on an unimportant subject.

 With a great sense of surrender, I'm going to try not to talk about Spyro or computers (in-depth) this time around. I can only assume that all you readers have just let out a sigh of relief. I'm going to try and talk about something topical or the like. I will be discussing something (or at least attempting to) that made me actually think today, which is no mean feat in itself. Censorship!

So, censorship in the media. Should it be enforced or loosened? The way I see it, the government seems to have no problem controlling what the public or even its employees post on the internet, but as soon as someone tries to publicise anything that makes the government look bad, they're liable for prosecution or even worse. A key example of this is (and forgive me if I report incorrectly, I couldn't find the story online) in England a few months or even a few years ago, maybe, a police officer was arrested for creating a blog regarding all incidences of misconduct performed by officers at his station. As far as I know, he hadn't commited a crime. He wasn't inciting hatred, he wasn't infringing on anyone's Human Rights. He was merely reporting on his day-to-day life.

So should we be censored at all, regarding what we post online? In a nutshell, there isn't any viable way of preventing things being posted online. It takes a great deal of effort and time to take down a website, and in the time it takes to do so, a new one can easily be created. And there's no way to patrol every single website created, because it would take forever (and that's not an exaggeration, since the World Wide Web is expanding at a phenomenal rate). I agree that punishing individuals for inciting hatred or infringing on Human Rights is acceptable. But for creating a blog about your work? I think not. Leave it to the organisation concerned to decide on a suitable consequence.

Now, Julian Assange, leadman of Wikileaks, the controversial website that has blown the cover on many government "conspiracies" (or if you don't like that word, "secrets" is certainly appropriate). Several government organisations have been trying to bring him down, but since he's not actually committed any crimes, they can't. Which pretty much says it all. He has not committed any crimes. He's just angered the government by blowing the lid on what they were trying to hide from us. He's not broken the Official Secrets Act, since he hasn't signed it. But I've not read properly into this so I can't be entirely sure (This is my disclaimer to get me out of those situations when you get trolls that just post comments like "MER MER MER YOU'RE WRONG." without kindly correcting me first).

The worrying thing is the way several governments have reacted in the past to events like this. A bit of background info first. MK Ultra was a CIA operation into mind-control drugs and, essentially, brainwashing. Now, when MK Ultra was eventually discovered, the individuals who attempted to publicise it met unfortunate ends, to say the least:

Victim: Frank Olson
CIA Version of events
Frank was apparently given a dose of LSD without his consent in November 1953. A week later, he had a severe psychotic episode and leapt to his untimely death from the 13th floor of a hotel, while a CIA doctor lie conveniently asleep in the next room.

Version of events provided by family
Frank had lasting effects from the illegal initial dose of LSD and became a security risk, since he knew so much about the inner workings of the CIA and had personal experience, and was thus murdered to prevent him divulging state secrets.

Now, the late Mr. Olson's body was exhumed in 1994 and forensic scientists conducted their work upon him to an interesting discovery. Poor old Frank had been knocked unconscious before he'd "leapt to his death" (Forensics showed evidence of cranial injuries). I don't know about anyone else, but I don't think it's possible to walk to a window, and jump out of a window if you've been knocked unconscious.

I've gone on quite a rant here, but this is quite worrying stuff. Maybe I should be worried about posting this? Nah. Let them try and throw me out of my bedroom window. I sleep on the ground floor.

"Censorship end in logical completeness when no-one is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads."