Recently Former President, Bill Clinton suggested their should be a United States or United Nation run agency for the purpose of debunking malicious rumors. This may sound good too some, but may also present a very troubling scenario. A Government run anti-rumor Agency would be one where the State is set up to be the sole source of “legitimate” information, and other sources or information that may be counter to this would be by default, treated as non-credible to the public. Leaving Government as the sole holder of what “truth” is regardless of the situation or scenario can only result in the State declaring what is valid and what is not. When Governments do this regardless of the motivations, this IS nothing more than propaganda.
If a story or source or information is critical of the government, and the government has declared itself as the final legitimate holder of truth, this presents a ways and means for governments to prevent and disregard potential legitimate concerns, ideas or questions of any subject. It would be nice to be able to trust a government to be prudent and proper with this responsibility, but history has a long dark history of this NEVER being the case, including the United States.
No one person, group, organization, government or nation should ever be able to declare a monopoly on what truth is. It is fine for government to present its facts or information in the public discourse, but these facts and information should ALWAYS be subject to public scrutiny, with no one place having the power to declare any questions regarding it as “rumor” and that to carry the public confidence in the form of a government agency.
The free flow and scrutiny of information from all sources and places must never be inhibited, and NONE should ever have a monopoly or the power to have a final say in “truth”. In a free society, there will be rumors, there will be misinformation, and there will be twists of what facts are to suit a specific purpose. But as long as all the information is available to all the people, with no single place having ANY authority to declare what “fact and truth” is, the people are better informed and are much better suited to decide on their own what the actual truth really is.
