"Sure, We Can Get Away With It;

Who Is Going to Know?" 

 Although the dramatic media often characterize news people as meddlesome and obnoxious vultures, updating the file on Neda reminded me....

...how many lives they now save around the world...

...and how much corruption is thwarted...

...just because it's getting very difficult to get away with things in a day of cell phone videos and 24-hour cable news.

Iran's Ahmadinejad government, backed by influential religious leaders in the country, desperately tried.

They tried by censoring anti-government stories in the press and on the Internet and having reporters locked up and their laptop computers confiscated...

...and murdering people like Neda.

Attempts to "spin" the story by threatening everyone from Neda's fiancée to her mother through "suggesting" radically different versions of  what happened and who was to blame just made Ahmadinejad look desperate in the eyes of the international community....

...if not irrational in his fear of this very well documented truth.

Of course, in repressive regimes censorship backed by threats ranging from all the way from fines to execution means that many stories do not come to the public's attention.

Even so, in a world where images and stories can go around the world in seconds, dictators can no longer ignore the possibility of exposure and the resulting international repercussions. The story of Neda, put a human face on what was going on in Iran and for the first time many people started paying attention.

The same happened in the Philippines and that led to the fall of a well-entrenched, U.S. supported, dictator.

Today, it's not "big brother" that is watching as much as your "brothers and sisters" everywhere.

-Ron Whittaker

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