North Korea’s Attack on Sony is an Attack on Our First Amendment

The_Interview
Critics are saying that Sony’s The Interview is a forgettable movie (44% at Rotten Tomatoes, 53% at Metacritic). Unfortunately, audiences will not be able to make that determination – and audience are, after all, the point of movies – because Sony will not be releasing it.

As Alex Gladstein, the director of institutional affairs at Human Rights Foundation put it, “It’s not the greatest movie of all time, but they can’t even go see it.”

Sony made this decision in the wake of North Korean threats of violence and mayhem should it be released:

We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places ‘The Interview’ be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to. Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made. The world will be full of fear. Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time. (If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)

To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.

But in a way, the decision was made for Sony when major theater chains like AMC, Cinemark, and Regal, all announced they would not show the film even if it were released.

All because of tiny, feisty North Korea, behaving like a Siamese cat who completely fails to understand the true balance of power in a household. Where, in a cat this is charming, coming from a nation state it is far less so. My Siamese cat, after all, has never threatened to kill me.

Justin Craig, senior producer and film critic at Fox News, with typical Foxian hyperbolic flourishes, speaks for many when he says, “Sony has just created a ridiculous, yet dangerous precedent.”

Exactly what country are we living in? How the hell could Sony give in to the demands of terrorists? And make no mistake about it… The hackers who broke into their computer systems are just that: Terrorists.

Hollywood is up in arms as well (a rare point of agreement between Fox News and Hollywood). Judd Apatow criticized the move and Jimmy Kimmel agreed:

Actor Steve Carrol agrees, calling it “a sad day for creative expression.”

And from liberal legend Michael Moore:

Of course, this event threatens their livelihood and he might be expected to say that. But many others agree. For that matter, I agree.

Craig says, “The United States doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. Neither should Sony.”

To be fair, Sony isn’t negotiating with terrorists. But that segues to the expected Founding Father quote, in this case, George Washington, who said in 1783, “If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

Like the film or no, and as I say, we don’t get to judge now, this is a national catastrophe, a foreign government telling Americans, First Amendment or no, you can only say and do certain things. Even the hated Vladimir Putin didn’t go there.

Is it time to roll out Toby Keith’s Angry American and maybe the M1A1 Abrams’ main battle tanks? Maybe not yet. The White House will have a response by tomorrow. But something has to be done. Something will be done, even if its ineffectual.

What do you do, after all, to a petty little, already living-on-scraps-from-China nation like North Korea?

Craig says, in essence, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! If the big theater chains won’t release it, Sony should release it “on demand” to smaller chains and independent theaters.

A New York Times editorial tells readers that “Corporations, even larger ones like Sony, cannot stand up to a rogue state and shadowy hacker armies all by themselves,” and this is certainly true (it is a strangely hopeful thought that this is true).

They say “That’s why the Obama administration needs to take a strong stand on this and future attacks.” Easier said than done, though one can applaud the sentiment.

Just as it can be difficult to discipline a cat – as any cat owner knows – it is difficult to discipline a nation. Look what he United States got away with during its run as a rogue nation in the Bush years, or what Putin has gotten away with since.

But while we read about how the United States could retaliate, the one thing nobody is talking about is actual cybersecurity, the things corporations could do to reduce the risk of further hacking attempts. Corporations are traditionally cheap, when it comes to cybersecurity. It is always, as I have said here before, an afterthought.

If corporations start paying attention to cybersecurity, perhaps we won’t see any more of these attacks. Corporations always say cybersecurity costs too much, but how much did this fiasco cost Sony? The cost of making the film is just the beginning.

In total, the losses are expected to be about 90 million:

  • $45 million to make the film;
  • $35 million to market the film domestically;
  • $10 million to $12 million to market the film overseas.

That’s a lot of money. Far less than some cybersecurity would have cost. But the losses to Sony are not only monetary; the entire corporation is coming apart at the seams thanks to the hackers revealing all its dirty secrets. As the Times pointed out, “millions of documents, including emails, health records and financial information.”

Sony, as a result, is a hot mess, soon, perhaps, to rival only North Korea itself.

Washington D.C. is as unhappy as Hollywood, with Republican Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee calling Sony’s move “capitulation,” Mitt Romney said, “don’t cave,” and Sen. John McCain (about to become chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee) said it was “profoundly troubling” (see, even Republican lawmakers can agree with Hollywood at times).

But McCain (who will make a big deal of this when he runs for president, just watch) also blamed Obama and Obama isn’t to blame: corporations are. Sony is.

If corporations would pay attention to cybersecurity, we would not be having this discussion now. The government has been more than willing to help corporations for decades (yes, decades), where cybersecurity is concerned, but corporations shun government help just as they shun spending money on something with no tangible rewards, like cybersecurity.

Maybe this will wake corporations up to the true stakes. We can point to this and say, “See what happens when you ignore cybersecurity?” I wouldn’t count on it. It’s so much easier in this day and age to simply blame Obama and maybe make the rest of us bail out Sony.

I do wish, though, that Sony and the theater chains would reconsider. I daresay they would have a mega-hit on their hands if they did. And for once, just for once, and in time for the holidays even, it would be nice to see something we could all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, celebrate.


Copyright PoliticusUSA LLC 2008-2023