Whenever the media or the police reports on arrests, criminal acts or apprehended terrorists they always use the word ‘alleged’ - and for good measure. I am sure most of us are aware of why this is done - but I do not think it is relevant anymore.

I am not saying those arrested are to be considered guilty before proven to be so. I have simply noticed that most of the viewers of those programs do not hear the word ‘alleged’ anymore. They simply look at an Arab on the street and think they are seeing a terrorist. They have a teacher accused by some grudging student of rape or sexual harassment and he’s out of school and scarred for life - regardless of what is determined afterwards.

Combine this with how arrest-happy the police have become in increasingly more western countries and you’ve just discovered a recipe for hate. Not just the Arab that came to find freedom in the U.S. and wishes he stayed home; not just the teacher that has discovered those he wanted to educate are those that value him the least; but all of us on the sideline that know these things aren’t OK. “We’re the middle-children of history, man. We’ve got no Great War, no Great Depression” Well, I guess we do.

Some say that immoral laws are not laws at all. That we must rebel against governments that try to strip away our freedoms for our security as they protect us against ourselves. Yet once we go against any law, we become criminals. The media always reminds us of what we have allegedly done or are prone to do in the near future and how the government is there with new laws and regulations to save us. We feel as if we might be doing something wrong at every step - at some point, after all, even revolutionaries had doubt in their own motives. There will slowly be no need for actual laws to protect us. We will be free of thought-crime.

Now, it is unreasonable to argue that we either do not need a police force or that arrests should be made only when the evidence against someone makes them guilty with a probability of 99.9% Yes, there should be appropriate and maybe more rigorous investigation made into each and every case - beyond race and religion of the ‘alleged’ perpetrator. But if we can take the media out of it until after trial [or until the defendant explicitly requires he'd like to speak to the press] we might minimize the damage that rushed arrests may have. 6-year old kids get arrested and their parents starred down in the neighbourhood while most people believe Guantanamo Bay to be between Mordor and Mos Eisley - all because of the press. They seem to generally fail where it matters most.

P.S. I am not downplaying the role of the press. It should be relatively obvious that most mainstream media has not been able to cover certain topics as well as others although the relevance of some seems to outshine many other. Unless, of course, all you care about revolves around whose penis is in Paris Hilton’s [new] home-made video.