Right now, somewhere, a man named Ray Bradbury is weeping before a grave marked “George Orwell,” hoping that his magical tears will raise the body back to life just so the two can co-write a new best-selling novel titled “I Told You So.”

From the arrests of Associated Press, NPR and Daily News journalists during the raids on Occupy Wall Street to the potential Internet censorship in the U.S. with the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, government redaction of individual thought has been blown into the forefront of the public eye.

What I really want to talk about though are the arrests of about 12 journalists during the New York City raid on Occupy Wall Street. Was I the only one to down the rest of his whiskey, raise an eyebrow and say, “What the hell?” when this report broke? Not that I’m biased or anything, but there’s a reason that in England Edmund Burke (the same guy Republicans quote to justify the Iraq war, who said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”) called journalism the fourth and most important estate of Parliament (or P-Funk, as we like to call it around my place).

He was right. Journalists are the watchdogs of government. They empower the citizens of a democratic nation with knowledge, which in turn allows citizens to act if they feel their government is out of place (ex: the thing that’s happening at Zucatti Park right now). But by arresting journalists covering the Occupy Wall Street Movement, the watchdog has been blindfolded.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had this to say about the incident: “The police department routinely keeps members of the press off to the side when they’re in the middle of a police action. It’s to prevent the situation from getting worse and it’s to protect the members of the press.”

It should be noted that by “off to the side,” Bloomberg means in locked in a jail cell that’s who knows how far away.

While I’m sure some reporters may appreciate Bloomberg’s genuinely caring attitude about the situation, there’s also something fundamentally wrong with that notion. Journalism, like every other service career, may sometimes require the journalist to put him or herself in harm’s way in order to best serve the public.

Firefighters need to enter burning buildings in order to protect you from a fire. Police officers need to show up at bank robberies in order to protect you from theft. Soldiers must be deployed into wars in order to protect you from foreign countries. Journalists must place themselves in the middle of all of it, in order to protect you from ignorance — and sadly in this case, from your own government.

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