The United States government traffics drugs such as heroin [1], has started wars under false pretenses to profit multi-national corporations [2] [3], backs death squads in Indonesia [4], tried to convince Martin Luther King Jr. to commit suicide [5], has conducted covert operations to dismantle and replace government structures across the world [6], has conducted experiments involving drugs like LSD on unwilling participants [7], is known to kidnap and torture people [8] [9], intercepts phone calls in the United States and collects every piece of information they can disregarding the constitution [10] [11] [12], performs drone strikes that kill innocent civilians [13], and kills American citizens without due process [14] [15]. Do you honestly believe they haven't killed any vocal opponents including journalists? If so, that is massively dangerous thinking.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_South...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_war
[4] http://www.democracynow.org/2013/7/19/the_act_of_killing_new...
[5] http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/01/21/the-fbi-wrote-a-lette...
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re...
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_and_the_United_States
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_el-Masri
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
[13] http://dirtywars.org
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
[15] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us/us-acknowledges-killing...
Edit: Saw another comment and did some more digging. Found a great article which I'll quote some of. You can find a link to it below.
"On April 8, 2003, during the US-led invasion of Iraq, Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Ayoub was killed when a US warplane bombed Al Jazeera's headquarters in Baghdad."
"Disturbingly, more journalists were murdered in targeted killings in Iraq than died in combat-related circumstances, according to the group Committee to Protect Journalists."
""Between 2003 and 2010 more than 30 Iraqi journalists were detained and held in prisons in Iraq by the Americans," she explained. "All of these journalists were arbitrarily arrested by the Americans, just as they continue to be arrested by the Iraqi government today.""
http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/2013/04/201348120278145...