America, June 15, 2005
Chill This Secret Service
Watch 1,000 Bush + Guns pics bloom
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Some days you have to stand up for what you believe in, even if it's unpopular or gets you in trouble with The Man. After my censorship in China, where my website is still banned, and the FTP blocking in Laos, I'm hypersensitive to censorship and am sad when I see it happen here. And see it I did on this Boing Boing post about American publisher's run-in with the Secret Service.
In short, Jeremy Lassen originally posted images of Bush juxtaposed with guns to a "Bush + Guns" flickr set to bring attention to this incident in Chicago. Secret Service agents later showed up to While I can understand we all need to make our own choices, I'm disappointed that Mr. Lassen chose to remove his photos. His actions remind me of how delicate our freedoms really are. Others seem to agree as they've made photos like this flickr set in a show of solidarity. Solidarity not in being un-American, or as a threat to the President (pleeze!), but as a red-blooded American act of patriotism and Constitution protection, that Red or Blue State, we should protect. I urge anyone with decent Photoshop skills (unlike my Crayon-level talent) who reads this to make their own images on other image services and private websites. Lets show the Secret Service that the Internet isn't one person or people and you cannot attempt to scare all of the Net into hitting the "delete" key.
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