National Security ought to be valued above Freedom of the Press

We are debating the Issue of whether National Security Ought to be valued above Freedom of the Press. My opponent made his argument based on the definitions of National Security and the Freedom of the Press as stated in the sources he cited. Moral accountability is derived from Natural Rights Theory. Safeguarding the Natural Rights is the Government which derives this legitimization from the Social Contract Theory. According to this theory the condition of mankind is a condition of War and therefore people make concessions to the government in order to protect themselves and safeguard their Right to Life. Freedom of the Press is not considered as a Natural Right. Therefore Freedom of the Press is 'less' valuable. These are a lot of points to think about, I hope the length of the debate is adequate to address them all. There are many routes to take in refuting what my opponent holds as a true statement. For this round I will try to show that Freedom of the Press (maybe Freedom of Information is a bit better) has an equal status in safeguarding fundamental rights as the legitimization of the Government to uphold them. I will try to work within the parameters of his argument, as much as I can, trying to show that it is a valid logical conclusion to consider that both Government and Freedom of the Press are equally important in safeguarding the Right to Life . I chose to follow this line of argumentation in this round because in his argument National Security is grounded upon the imperative to safeguard fundamental human rights, the most important of which is the Right to Life. Therefore I will try to deconstruct the argument from within showing that his combination of supporting theories and premises does not necessarily lead to the conclusion he is making. First of all, I would like to make the following point, namely that Social Contract Theory is premised upon the assumption that the natural state of mankind is evil. I will comment that, the need to legitimize "Government" control was probably more important for Social Contract Theory than the need to examine human nature. It would suffice to question the status of Social Contract Theory to claim that the natural state of mankind is not necessarily evil. I will only point out that peaceful societies do exist and that Governments are not the only kind of social organization. For this round though I will accept that Governments operate as stated by my opponent. I will start by addressing the fundamental "Right To Life". The "Right to Life" first and foremost has to be secured by eating, drinking, and so on. This is more important than the right to defend our lives simply because no human agent/ danger is necessary for to be a shortage of food or water. Therefore, it is primary to have a food source, but it is NOT NECESSARY to have a human threat in order to lose a food source. The Right to DEFEND life has to be applied only in face of DANGER to life from a person/people. It is not by accident that the definition of National Security involves areas such as economic security, monetary security, energy, environmental and political. Is the unemployed and the homeless worried about economic and monetary security? This is a rhetorical question leading to another path of argumentation. The point I am making is that, economic security problems, for example, are not part of Natural Law. Therefore they can not be perceived as primary threats, as compared to drought which is a natural threat. IF NATURAL RIGHTS ARE PRIMARY RIGHTS, THEN NATURAL THREATS ARE PRIMARY THREATS. Need I point out that Governments do little to none when they are faced with the dilemma, "money or environment"? If governments were aware of their mission to defend primary human rights, then it would make sense that their actions would be more eco-friendly. I will further point out that the definition of National Security makes no mention of fundamental rights, which is telling that it is not premised upon them. National Security, as defined, is quite different from the statement that it is used to Protect the Right to Life. The threat to LIFE can be a Natural Disaster, something which can be protected but not defended. Protection does not imply an opponent whereas defense does. In this sense it is more fundamental for National Security to protect rather than defend, simply because that, even without an opponent, there is still considerable NATURAL danger. Now, let's say that people are starving and someone discovered a new source of food, enough for everyone. Wouldn't he be right to "Publish" such information? Of course. Would he need permission from the Government to publish this information? I don't think so because it is not necessary that the Government would be opposed to letting people know that a solution has been found. Would it be a matter of timing of the release of this information important in order to avoid panic? Maybe yes, maybe no. It is not conclusive that it would lead to reactions of panic. Governmental control is founded by predicating a natural 'badness' to human nature. I would rather argue that, although some people may react like crazy, most of them would be happy to know that a solution has been found and let the government deal with the distribution of food peacefully. Why? Simply because nations cover a huge geographical distance and most people can not get what they need without government intervention. Shouldn't they know that help is on the way? That they will live to see another day? We can even assume that the necessary food or energy source is on another planet (or it will be dispatched by another nation). How can that cause panic? How can we assume that keeping the public from knowing something like this is to its own protection? (I obviously hate the predication that mankind is inherently evil but as I said I will not try to argue that here but only show that it does not need be so. In my opinion this premise is essential to establish oppressive governments) Now let's assume that the basic assumption is correct and natural rights are fundamental. In such a scenario "Freedom of the Press" is important for "Natural Security" as it PROTECTS a NATURAL RIGHT JUST AS MUCH AS A GOVERNMENT DOES. The protection comes from publishing vital information necessary to secure the right to life. My opponent used the argument of "a person with a gun coming to your property" to demonstrate the natural superiority of upholding the right to life. The same example, with a small twist, can be used if favor of the status "Freedom of the Press". The twist is that a newspaper warned people that a mad, dangerous person with a gun, was at large and also published a photo of the suspect. Someone called the police, the dangerous person was arrested, and the dangerous situation never took place. In this, and many other cases, Freedom of the Press is essential to the Protection of Natural Rights, as stated by my opponent. Government is not, and can not be, the only source of information. If the Government was the only reliable source of information, PRESS and GOVERNMENT would be ONE AND THE SAME THING regarding vital information sharing in relation to the protection of natural rights. We presume though that Press and Government are different, and rightly so. If the government controlled all kinds of information, that would be a recipe for a totalitarian regime (some might claim that we already live in one....an interview of Noam Chomsky comes to my mind, but I will try to find the interview on YouTube if requested) The final point I would like to make is that we are talking about democratically elected governments (I assume). Now I question the following. Is the Government the only institution available to safeguard fundamental rights? Would it be antagonistic to another institution that did exactly the same thing? This is a case for NGO's and voluntary organizations like "Doctors of the World". Sometimes governments face serious limitations for many reasons and that is where all these organizations step in to fill the gap. In saying this I don't question the authority of the Government but its effectiveness. Privatization can also be taken into consideration as a substitute of government control. It is logical to conclude that if other institutions are able to address vital issues, then authority over these issues is 'equal' (in a sense) to government authority. If authority can be equally distributed, doesn't this imply that authority over the right to inform can be also distributed? Doesn't this entail the conclusion that the right to be informed can be equally well practiced by others and not the Government? Don't the professionals know when they do their job well as opposed to amateurs? And in doing one's job well, doesn't he know the consequences of what he does? Therefore, isn't the Press in a better position to know what kind of information is permissible or not? (I assume yes) The conclusion that my opponent reaches only applies to cases where the Freedom of the Press is antagonistic to National Security, but this is not stated explicitly in his argument. For example, the military has defense strategies on paper. If they were made public then they would give the enemy a definite advantage in case of war. That's why the military is extremely secretive. Now, if someone published such information, we would be right to say, that he has exposed vital national security information I will end this round by restating what my main refutation point is. Freedom of the Press is EQUALLY important, not less, in safeguarding Natural Human Rights by providing necessary information to the public to protect the Right to Life.