This morning, one of the most important stories in newspapers across the country was something that wasn’t there.
Newspapers that regularly publish the Pearls Before Swine cartoon by Stephan Pastis didn’t print the comic strip. That’s because it was decided that today’s Pearls Before Swine strip was judged to be too politically controversial.
You can see the censored comic strip below.
Get the joke? The character says something on the phone that sounds something like ISIS, an alternate name for the Islamic State who feel queasy about saying “Islamic State”. The National Security Agency is listening to the conversation, and then in the final panel, the character who was on the phone is taken away by U.S. government agents.
For this – for even making a joke about the nearly constant electronic surveillance that has been imposed upon the American people under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, a large number of newspapers censored the Pearls Before Swine today.
Post Script: Are you one of those Americans who was relieved to hear that Congress banned NSA spying against Americans through the USA Freedom Act last year? It’s a shame to disappoint you, but the USA Freedom Act didn’t really end electronic surveillance against Americans. It just outsourced the job to electronic media corporations, and was followed by a “cybersecurity” bill that removed even the scant constitutional safeguards contained in the USA Freedom Act.
Unconstitutional surveillance of Americans’ private communications is up and running again – but did it stop the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando? Not at all.
The federal government is systematically encouraging the violation of Americans’ constitutional rights for the sake of an surveillance system that fails to stop terrorist attacks.
How have America’s journalists responded? They’ve censored a cartoon that mocks the surveillance system.
Meekly bowing to the political view of those in power isn’t the job of the Fourth Estate.