YALer Matt Schmitto on Wikileaks and Internet Freedom

Matt Schmitto, President of the  Texas State University San Marcos Chapter of YAL, was quoted in The Prairie about Wikileaks and the coming attacks on internet freedom:

Matthew Schmitto, a member of the group Young Americans for Liberty, said he feels Wikileaks has not violated the Constitution because its founder, Julian Assange, is not an American.

“I don’t think Wikileaks is bound by our Constitution,” he said. “[They] owe no loyalty or anything else to the United States. If anything we should be thanking them for showing us [what] our government is using our tax money towards.”

....Schmitto said he foresees regulations against the Internet taking place. He expects fewer attempts to control freedom of the press.

“I definitely think that the government will continue to gather new regulations on the Internet in the future in an attempt to prevent something of this nature from happening again,” he said.

Schmitto said that U.S. government is already planning restrictions to pass into law.

“I think Wikileaks is going to dramatically affect the freedom of the Internet,” he said. “Senators and Congressmen have already begun writing up new legislation that will provide immense amounts of regulations in effect jeopardizing the freedom of the Internet that we are used to.”

Read the full article here.

Obscenity vs. Freedom

Reason.tv takes a beautiful look at the ensuing obscenity battle, or as the statists like to put it, "porn war," being fought in our nation's court systems.

Note how Mr. Trueman says that what is important isn't rights themselves, but what the courts say are rights. Statists love judicial activism!

Note: Viewer discretion is advised.

Kudos to Reason.tv.

Just a Question or Two...

On Tuesday night I paid a visit to 1333 H Street here in Washington, DC for what I thought would be an interesting debate over reconstruction issues in Iraq, an event held by the National Security Network.

Inspector General Stuart Bowen was present and delivered an interesting opening statement laying out his plans for fixing bureaucracy and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. He spoke proudly of the $53 Billion (of our tax dollars) that is being spent on reconstruction and the efforts the United States puts in “protecting its interests abroad.”

Why does the United States need interests abroad? It seems as if Mr. Bowen, a residue of the Bush Administration, is only promulgating a message of perpetual war, especially when he laid out his plans for reconstruction.