On July 6, 2003, Joseph Wilson wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times criticizing the Bush Administration’s rush into the Iraq war. Eight days later, Robert Novak wrote a column revealing Wilson’s wife’s role within the CIA. We may never know exactly what happened within the office of the Vice President and discussions with members of the media, but one way of dealing with dissent is to attack the dissenter’s family. When attacks step over the line, the U.S. legal system gets involved, and we shall see if I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby will be found guilty of obstructing the efforts of the U.S. legal system to get to the bottom of this.

Yet this isn’t the only way that critics get handled. Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan have criticized conservative Catholics for certain positions and leaders of these conservatives fought hard to get them fired from their jobs. Ultimately the personal threats that they received caused them to move on from the job in question. Yet capitalism sometimes triumphs and it looks like the publicity that Amanda and Melissa have received might actually end up helping their careers. I hope this will be the case.

When Ken Krayeske wrote online about trying to find people that would protest the inauguration of Gov. M. Jodi Rell, he found himself on a police list of dangerous dissidents. He was arrested for attempting to take her picture during the inauguration parade, was help for thirteen hours at a bail of $75,000 and then released without bail after the inauguration was over. Another way to handle dissent is to lock up possible dissenters until the government feels it is safe to release them. In theory, Habeas Corpus should protect Americans from such treatment, but our nation’s commitment to Habeas Corpus seems to have waned in the years after 9/11.

Ken’s brief stay in jail is nothing compared to Josh Wolf’s stay in jail. Josh is an independent journalist, video blogger and media activist who videotaped a demonstration in San Francisco. On Feb 6th, Josh became the “Longest-incarcerated journalist in U.S. history for refusal to comply with a subpoena on journalistic principles.”

When Charlie Grapski, in Florida attempted to investigate voting irregularities in is home town of Alachua, Florida, he was arrested for recording a public official in a public space. The charges were later thrown out, but only after Charlie’s life had been very seriously disrupted. In his continuing efforts to get to the bottom of voting irregularities in Alachua, he has been threatened with taser attacks by the chief of police for attending a city council meeting.

All of this provides a backdrop as we wait for a verdict in the Libby trial. Then, yesterday, I received a message about a verdict. Guilty! No, it wasn’t in the Libby trial, it was in the trial of an Egyptian blogger who had criticized the government and religious conservatives in his own country. Abdel Karim Suleiman, also known on his blog as Karim Amer was arrested for insulting “onvicted of insulting Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak”, the the Committee to Protect Journalists reported. The State Department was “’very concerned’ over sentencing of Egyptian blogger”.

There may be people in the United States that wish Amanda or Melissa could be incarcerated for insulting Catholicism. There may be people in the United States that would like to see Joseph Wilson incarcerated for insulting President Bush. There are plenty of cases where people get thrown in jail, get themselves, their families and their jobs threatened for speaking their minds. Those of us who love freedom, who support our troops efforts to defend freedom abroad, must fight equally hard to defend freedom of press here and around the world.

(Cross posted at Greater Democracy)