The executives at Sony Pictures made the selfless call, not to exercise their freedom of expression and to protect their employees—a decision far more noble than having Monsanto lobbyists pump money into Washington to keep people from knowing what they are eating.
By RA Monaco
When you “attack something as fundamental as free expression… it’s not going to go unnoticed,” said Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins Jr. while discussing the FBI’s conclusion that the North Korean government was behind the cyber-attack on Sony Pictures.
Although North Korea denied involvement from the start and now proposes a joint investigation into the hack and the threats, it still praised the cyber-attack as a “righteous deed.”
“What we can do about it is not clear,” commented Holman Jenkins, but “I think it’s a great idea for Sony to release this movie and make sure the whole world sees it, including the people in North Korea.”
According to Reuters, a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman on Saturday commented, “Now that the US hostile policy with an aim to invade our republic under the guise of human rights has become apparent, the idea of de-nuclearizing the Korean peninsula itself is no longer valid.”
Their statement followed President Obama telling the press, “Yes, I think they made a mistake,” not releasing the satirical movie The Interview during his year-end news conference on Friday at the White House. “We cannot have a society in which a dictator in some place can start imposing censorship in the United States,” said the president, who wishes that Sony had spoken with him before deciding.
“What you really want to know was who fashioned the messages that went to Sony and told them that they wanted this movie removed” said Holman Jenkins, because “hacking is kind of a hive activity, you know. North Koreans are probably in there; lots of these hackers who are cooperating with North Korean hackers probably don’t even know they’re doing so.”
The threatening message to all Sony employees read, “Not only you but your family will be in danger,” if the studio went ahead with its planned release of the comedy. The threat came from a group calling itself the Guardians of Peace. The supposed offending story narrative—as portrayed in the official trailer—apparently centers on Seth Rogen and James Franco’s comedic characters being tasked by the Central Intelligence Agency to “take-out” the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
WSJ’s Holman Jenkins said that the FBI, “took for granted the idea that the motive came from the movie and that the purpose and the result, was what North Korea is looking for, which might be true.” Importantly, “there is no evidence of that” said Holman Jenkins Jr., “just some little signs that this was like some other [North Korean] related attacks. So it's really hard to know exactly who was involved,” explained the columnist.
The fact that this group was threatening to kill people if Sony Pictures exercised their freedom of expression seems reason enough for the FBI to get these conclusions right.
In a related New York Times Op-Ed piece, Aaron Sorkin chastisedthe news media for exercising those very same freedoms of expression because—in his opinion—their motivation was “because a stolen email revealed that Jennifer Lawrence was being undervalued” and “not because hackers had released Social Security numbers, home addresses, computer passwords, bank account details, performance reviews…and even the medical records of employees and their children.”
Sorkin’s abstract speculation about a publisher’s purpose or intent is the hamster wheel of free speech debate. By definition, doesn’t the news media always have a mixed motive—sometimes providing news we need to know to engage in self-governance—but always driven by revenues. So, if it was a mistake for Sony not to release their movie as the president said, Sorkin’s conjecture about the media’s motives seems equally at odds with those identical freedoms of expression—maybe he too should’ve consulted with the president.
When it comes to the president’s ideas on free expression Daniel Ellsberg is heralded as one of the most outspoken critics of the Obama administration’s for the prosecution of Bradley Manning, a young soldier who released a large amount of classified information to WikiLeaks. Under President Obama's tenure, the government has prosecuted six individuals—including Manning—for releasing classified information for publication to media organizations.
According to our government at the time, Daniel Ellsberg was a criminal too, but somehow the New York Times and other newspapers, found the courage and moral high ground that led to publishing the Pentagon Papers which revealed important government decision-making about the war in Vietnam. Ellsberg considers Manning a hero, and he argues that there is little difference between what Manning did in 2010 and what he did four decades earlier.
WikiLeaks journalist Julian Assange, now one of the world’s most notorious journalists has remained at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for over four years, living in fear of being brought to face a grand jury, after having out-flankedthe U.S. Government publishing classified documents that also revealed government war crimes.
And, it wasn’t that long ago, that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden set out on a personal mission to expose the massive surveillance program of our own government which likely would not have otherwise become public knowledge—he now shares the same fate as Assange, exiled living in Russia.
In the context of free speech, comparing Sony’s decision to these others examples of free expression—which many would argue are purely espionage cases—is like comparing “apples-to-oranges” you think? Maybe.
On the other hand, if censoring our free expression turns on having the proper motive or higher purpose, which seems important to Sorkin and the case with Sony—employee and public safety—then doesn’t that decision most heavily fall on those who could have acted to inform the public and in some cases save lives—people like Daniel Ellsberg, Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and the executives and Sony Pictures who, for the moment, have courageously chose safety over profit.
Clearly, there are times when our freedoms of expression should be censored—yelling “fire” in a crowded theater comes to mind, right? But too often, free speech has become a deified construct, unaccompanied by such noble motives or purpose. Consider the insights of Vandana Shiva.
“Now you know about Citizens United and what it’s done to your elections,” asked Dr. Shiva, while speaking before the Earth at Risk 2014 forum. “But there are two other aspects where this issue of corporate personhood and the ability to spend money to influence decisions as free speech is being applied right now,” says Shiva.
Sitting far away in India, Shiva observes that our interpretations of free speech “look totally crazy.” Dr. Shiva explained, that “The insanity of our times is corporations which are legal entities which should exist with our permission; within bounds of responsibility; within the limits of ecological sustainability; have suddenly in this country, defined themselves as persons.”
So when people in California decided that they had a right to know what they were eating and get GMO labeling laws in place, “Monsanto spent $40 million in Washington [and] another $26 million in Oregon and Colorado” to undermine the effort, according to Shiva.
“In Vermont, which is a small poor state,” says Vandana Shiva, “they got the labeling law through the legislative process and now Monsanto is suing Vermont on grounds that corporations are persons.”
It wasn’t clear however, if Dr. Shiva was lumping Monsanto in with the Grocery Manufacturers Association suitwhich she says is a front for the non-grocers—the junk food producers; the Pepsi’s and the Cokes’ who need GMO’s for their high fructose corn syrup. Their argument in the law suit according to Dr. Shiva, is that “If people have a right to know what they are eating then our free speech is being taken away.”
The insanity behind the idea of corporations as people having the right of free speech, according to Dr. Shiva, “has set up the ultimate clash of who is a being; who is a person; and, whose speech will count, and what is speech.”
The executives at Sony Pictures made the selfless call, not to exercise their freedom of expression and to protect their employees—bravo! That decision—like other free expressions mentioned here—is far nobler than suing the State of Vermont or having Monsanto lobbyists pump money into Washington to keep people from knowing what they are eating.
While most people would agree with President Obama, that “We cannot have a society in which a dictator in some place can start imposing censorship in the United States,” the issue President Obama should really address, is how corporate free speech—exercised by Monsanto and others—has become any less of a dictator than North Korea in today’s America?