A New York satellite TV dealer named Javed Iqbal was recently arrested simply for providing access (no, actually for agreeing to provide access) to a certain satellite channel. You won’t see Disney cartoons on this particular channel, as its al-Manar, a channel that acts as the propaganda arm of Hizbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group. (Read USA Today’s recent profile of Al-Manar).
Now I don’t happen to agree with Al-Manar’s message. After all, for hatred and one-sided, venom-spewing propaganda there’s always Fox News. But aside from all that, it is a clear violation of the First Amendment to make listening to an opposing viewpoint a crime. That’s just what the Department of Treasury did in December 2004 when it branded the television channel “a terrorist entity” and made all financial transactions between Al-Manar and Americans unlawful.
How a video signal can be considered dangerous is beyond me. Guns, yes. Bombs, yes. But not a TV signal. As far as I know, no one’s ever died from watching TV.
Blocking broadcasts is something cold-war Soviets did. It’s what Castro’s Cuba does. You expect it from totalitarian governments. It’s not something a supposedly free country – one which supposedly values freedom of speech – engages in. Even the oppressive, Islamic government of Iran can’t stop the spread of thousands of satellite dishes on homes across the country.
Is Hizbollah a terrorist organization? Undoubted and unabashedly. Is Al-Manar being used to further their terrorist goals? Perhaps. But freedom of speech is freedom of speech. You either accept that every idea has a right to be expressed – whether you agree or disagree – or you don’t. If you restrict speech – ANY speech – it isn’t free anymore.
I hope this New York guy’s case to court and he wins. And then he sues the pants off the Treasury Department. A government that can tell us what we can and can’t watch and whom we can and can’t believe poses a bigger threat to our freedom than any terrorist.