ABSTRACT
At a time when journalists have never been more needed to explain the complexities of an increasingly integrated world, they have never been more under threat: jailed in increasing numbers by some of the more authoritarian administrations, threatened with prosecution in the countries which have democratic governments. There is a real possibility that the over-reach of national security laws in the West will damage the very commodity that heightened internet surveillance is supposedly designed to protect: security and liberty. The role of journalists is grudgingly accepted by Western nations as an inconvenient necessity, as a measure of democracy, but the fact is executive government has done all it can to manage the news, to restrict what journalists can reveal about the secret activities of state. One well-tried method of control is to 'shoot the messenger', or cripple his or her capability to reveal important and unpleasant truths.
