On the Media 3: Under the Wall

I decided to listen to the podcast "Under the Wall", which was about CBS and NBC's coverage of people from Wast Berlin who were attempting to tunnel under the Berlin Wall to get to East Berlin and free their friends and families. The podcast also discusses the Kennedy Administration's attempts at stifling the story and preventing the journalists from publishing their stories. NBC and CBS both sent journalists to Berlin to video tape the tunneling and get live action of the events as they were transpiring. The news organizations funded two tunnels in exchange for exclusive rights for video of the escapes.

The main ethical issues that arose from the podcast were whether or not it was justifiable for the journalists to try to help these people escape, and whether or not to air their footage. Additionally, the Kennedy administration's attempts to suppress the journalists raises questions. The physical context of the podcast is, most notably, Berlin, Germany, and more specifically, under the Berlin Wall. The psychological context is, in my opinion, the most important context to consider in this case. At the time, fear was widespread. Nuclear war was a very real possibility, and people, including John F. Kennedy, feared anything that might cause conflict between the United States and the Soviets, as the wall was located deep within Soviet territory. The cultural context is also important. The journalists, as Americans, represented the United States, in a sense. Documentaries of these journalists aiding tunnelers in Berlin were seen as dangerous because they could incite tension and lead to a nuclear war. The cultural context of Greg Mitchell, who Bob Garfield talks to in the podcast, is also important because Mitchell wrote a book about the Tunnels, which boosts his credibility. Further, his background as a journalist could lead to an inherent bias that would result in him advocating for journalistic freedom and against prior constraint by the government.

Whenever nuclear warfare is a serious threat, the government has to take extra precautions when it comes to international relations. The proposed documentaries could have been extremely dangerous if released to the public. While I wouldn't normally advocate for prior constraint, I think that war and international relations warrant different rules. In 1961, both the United States and the Soviets were testing nuclear weapons. This was a crucial point in history and desperate times call for desperate measures. I can see why the Kennedy administration thought it was best to stifle American journalists in Berlin. Even though the journalists' primary goal was to get footage of the tunnelers for documentaries, they were part of the movement and they were essentially aiding and abetting people who were participating in criminal activity (criminal in the eyes of the Soviets, that is). To play devil's advocate against my own argument, these people were just trying to be reunited with their families and friends. As the podcast pointed out, tunneling under the wall was the difference between enslavement and freedom for some. These were the grounds on which the journalists justified their behavior. I would argue that in the eyes of the President of the United States, the welfare of a small number of people in Berlin is not worth compromising the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. President Kennedy took an oath to serve the people of the United States, not the people of East Berlin, Germany.

Hindsight is always 20-20. I think this phrase is relevant in this situation because the documentary "The Tunnel", made by NBC, went on to win Emmy awards. Most notably, it was the first documentary to win the Program of the Year Emmy. The release of the documentary did not end up fueling a nuclear war, so it's easy to say that the Kennedy Administration was wrong as we look back in history. At the time, however, the threat of nuclear war was very real. In a blog article on ScientificAmerican.com, David Ropeik details the rise of "Nuclear Fear" in the early 1960's. This fear made some people irrational, but I think that whether or not the threat was real is irrelevant, because the fear was very real. People wanted to feel safe and secure, and although Kennedy may have sequestered journalistic freedom, I think his stance was justifiable and defensible.

Well-Informed: Radicalization and Religion

In the United States, when we hear the term "radicalization", Islam is probably the next word that comes to mind. Radicalization also connotes terrorism, especially when used by the news media in the contemporary United States.

An essay that I found listed technology as a major source of enablement for radicalization. The internet provides a platform for like minded individuals to meet and connect. Before the internet and other modern forms of communication, someone with radical beliefs was much more likely to feel isolated and alone. This feeling of isolation prevented them, in many cases, from actually turning their radical ideas into radical actions. The internet makes it possible for radical individuals to find other radical individuals, and suddenly they are a radical group, rather than isolated radical individuals.

The concept of technology as an enabler brings me to an interesting article published by the Washington Post. The article asserts, with facts and studies as support, that engineers are unusually likely to become members of violent terrorist organizations. The study cited by the Post states that nearly twice as many members of violent terrorist organizations had degrees in engineering than did in Islamic studies. The study also shows that nine times as many terrorists were engineers as would be expected by chance. My point in bringing up this study wasn't to say that I think engineers are terrorists. The point was to show that not all terrorists are Muslim. I think that most intelligent people know that terrorism and Islam aren't synonymous, but Islam definitely has a negative connotation because of its connection to terrorism. In this post, I hope to shed light on the idea that someone can be Muslim and not be a terrorist (which should be obvious, but unfortunately there are people who actually believe the two are interchangeable terms).

A Huffington Post article outlines several key concepts to understand about Islam and terrorism. The article states that according to the FBI, 94% of terrorist attacks on the United States between the years of 1980 and 2005 were carried out by non-Muslims. This is an incredibly powerful statistic. Out of every ten terrorist attacks on the United States, nine of them would have been committed by individuals or groups who were not Muslim. The article goes on the explain that even if every single one of the terrorist attacks studied had been carried out by Muslims, those individuals would still only represent 0.00009% of all Muslims.

These statistics were eye opening for me. I don't think I am a prejudicial person, yet I was still under the impression that the vast majority of terrorist attacks were committed by people of Islamic faith. I am grateful to have read this article and done some research on this topic, because my findings put a lot of issues into perspective, and many of these issues are pivotal at this point in history.

Well-Informed: Privacy and Security

Privacy is a very controversial topic in the United States because not everyone agrees on what should be considered private. One side of the argument says that our right to privacy is protected by the Fourth Amendment, and that any infringement of privacy, especially by the government, should be deemed unconstitutional. 54% of Americans disapprove of the government collecting phone and internet data, according to a 2015 Pew Research poll. 42%, however, said that they approve (the remaining percent is attributed to people who refused to respond or said they did not know). These percentages illustrate the first major dilemma. The definition of privacy is extremely relative. Some people believe that governmental overreach is necessary for national security, among other things. They would argue that the government can't protect the citizens if they know nothing about them.

In an opinion article published on CNN.com, Glenn Sulmasy writes that, "what might have been reasonable 10 years ago is not the same any longer." He is referring to the "jihadist" threat being more imminent than ever. He also touches on how the rapid development and innovation of the technology industry has led to more platforms for "home grown" terrorism. He also states that technology has been beneficial for the purpose of gathering intelligence. I think this statement reflects a general trend of fear that has caused privacy to take a back seat to national security.

Many people are terrified of the Internet and other technological forms of communication. They think that the government can monitor their every move, from their cell phone to their computer activity. This is essentially true, though we cannot know for sure how extensively they can monitor our activity. Being a member of a younger generation, I've given up on anything I do being private, especially when technology is involved. This topic always reminds me of the uproar that resulted after Facebook started giving data about users to advertisers. Even though the data was impersonal and had more to do with demographic information than it did personal details, people were distraught. This example, however, shows how nothing is really private nowadays, especially not online. Every click, every search, and every "like" is stored somewhere and seen by someone.

Privacy is a peculiar topic to me because there are people who preach the Fourth Amendment, yet they post their entire lives on social media. Every time you search for Donald Trump, you are setting yourself up to be bombarded by his ads. Every time you buy Nike shoes on Amazon, you can expect to see Nike ads and commercials on every site you visit. Behavioral targeting has become a common practice, but to some it is considered a complete breach of privacy. After all, websites are essentially selling your activity to advertisers so that they can profit off of you. This concept often goes unnoticed, though, since we live in such a commercialized society. That leads back to the disinterest that I mentioned before. People are so dependent on technology, and that trend is a gold mine as far as government intelligence agencies are concerned. If we are putting all of our information into technology anyway, I don't understand why people are up in arms about the government using this information to protect us. There is definitely a line, and the government might be walking on it at some times, but I don't think they've crossed it yet.