Apple has been ordered to pay almost $700,000 (Ars Technica, MacNN) for the legal fees of the reporters it sued to find out who their confidential sources were.

There are lots of Apple users on the Progressive Left, people who claim to value freedom of speech for its own sake. I ask you: Is this the kind of behavior you should reward with your money? Is brand loyalty worth more to you than your freedom of speech?

It’s time to more critically examine at what Apple is doing; go beyond warm fuzzies you might get from their ads.

If you’re having a hard time seeing how this case works in your favor, imagine if Apple made something that mattered more (food, for instance) and was able to keep their industrial design descriptions locked up. The same power Apple tried to claim here is the power other corporations would claim tomorrow if they could. They’d be able to hide a number of problems that could adversely affect the health of everyone who ate that food or worked in that business. The more power you place in corporate hands, the more you need to know what corporations do, plan to do, and the more you realize you need democratic control over corporations.