Our founding fathers aimed to create a country grounded on the ideals of a government run by the people, for the people. Merriam-Webster defines democracy as “an organization or situation in which everyone is treated equally and has equal rights.”
    This week, the Starkville Board of Aldermen is to present a proposal that aims to revoke the voice of its constituents. The ban would prohibit the use of smartphones from use in its open meetings. The only group exempt from the proposed ban would be official news media, a small minority in the greater Starkville population. As an attendee of a Starkville Board of Aldermen meeting, a vast majority of the population in attendance were non-media citizens. Board of Aldermen meetings are a public forum between aldermen and their wards.
   The proposed ban has been reported on by major U.S. newspapers from The Clarion-Ledger to The Miami Herald to The Kansas City Star. The national media attention the proposed ban has received highlights a deeper-rooted issue than a mere smart phone ban. It gets at the heart of the issue, an attempt by a government to silence a citizen’s free speech and the negative effect such a ban has on a democracy.
   As a student journalist, I have taken my laptop to a Board of Aldermen meeting. Why, you may ask? As a tool of accuracy. As a journalist, I want to make sure to relay accurate details, quotes and decisions detailed in the meeting. I have to question a government that does not value accuracy and goes so far as to silence the voice of its public — be it social or print media. If the government is confident in the decisions it makes, then why does it silence the public’s constitutional right to relay those decisions?
  The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
   Furthermore, the state of Mississippi passed the Sunshine laws, which mandate an open meeting policy between government bodies and its constituents. As a resident in Starkville, I want to trust my alderman to make decisions for the betterment of myself and my neighbors. But I also want transparency that can only be gained by a two-way communication model of meeting attendants’ ability to relay meeting information to the public as a whole. Without social media, how will the aldermen understand the needs of their public.
   Starkville Mayor Parker Wiseman relayed his concerns over the ban to The Dispatch.
   “I don’t mind having rules to maintain order in a meeting, but I am concerned the effect of this proposal would do more to suppress speech than maintain order,” Wiseman said in a text message.
    At the 2008 Democratic National Convention, former U.S. President Bill Clinton said, “People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power” (npr.org).
   Does the Board of Aldermen have the power to silence its city’s freedom of speech? It may be too soon to tell. But the more telling question is do we live in a city where the government wants to silence its population’s freedom of speech? A greater power would be a government that values the voices of its citizens, the power those voices exude and what accomplishments can be made when it lets those voices be heard — be it social-media or print-media.