The government is not the only group that keeps secrets. Police, politicians, businesses, groups, organizations, societies, even families and individuals do.
If you choose to work for the government, police, or business then you are also agreeing to keep its secrets -- This is not censorship, this is a contract entered into by two parties. The chemist discussed earlier is not being censored, he is abiding by his contract.
If you choose to be a member in good standing of a society, group, or family then you should also respect and keep their secrets.
The rather complex discussion of what secrets they should be allowed to keep and why is a separate one from censorship.
Equally complex is a discussion of when and why those secrets should be exposed by a whistle blower.
Many organizations, religions, and cultures, including AD and my family, place limits on behavior, both physical and verbal, that are very real but in fact are not censorship. These entities cannot stop you from saying what you want, or doing what you want, but can and will disallow your membership within their group for violating the community ethic.
You are not going to remain a Mormon in good standing if you insist that Joseph Smith is a false prophet. Nor would a Jehovah's Witness be well received in any Kingdom Hall if they were to run around telling everyone God's true name is Luigi.
Mind you, you can do these things, just don't do it in their house or on their time, and don't bother to wonder why they don't greet you with a hug.
But John Stuart Mill was not only concerned about government censorship. He was very concerned with the tyranny of the majority and with protecting the rights of minorities and minority beliefs and opinions. His position being that the tyranny of the majority is especially dangerous to individual liberty because the most commonly recommended remedy is to demand that the recalcitrant minority either persuade the majority to change its views or learn to conform to socially accepted norms.
While a group has the right to disown you as one of its members it has no right to demand you change your opinion.
While a church has the right to rail against homosexuals within the confines of their pulpits and the right to restrict its membership to heterosexuals it does not have the right to chase the poor gay guy down the street threatening him with bodily harm.
Media censorship does exist but after a lifetime of looking at it I can only reach one conclusion, in the free world it is not in the service of any group or ideal except one: The holy trinity of Ratings, Sales, and Income. It produces what ever commodity that will garner the largest sales figures, which translates into the largest readership for papers, listeners for radio, or viewers for television. In that pursuit it will print the truth, the whole truth, and anything but the truth.
Fact: Anyone who claims to hold a similar view to John Stuart Mill is GOING to be biased in exactly the same way the framers of the Constitution and The Bill of Rights were. Mill was a radical freedom monger.
Does that mean the Constitution and the Bill of Rights should be discounted because they are biased?
If this is true we should not allow the common person the right to vote or make any other decision -- Myself included -- Perhaps you as well. If they can't be trusted with the information needed to make the decision, how can they be trusted to make the decision?
By today's standards Mill himself sounds cartoonish, but having been born in London on May 20, 1806 it is a bit doubtful he ever heard of the Power Rangers.
I personally think the real questions are:
Should we be concerned about the level of censorship as it exists today?
Should we be concerned about the level of censorship as it may exist tomorrow?
