[noCensorship] Bill aims to curb Net censorship

  • From: Hat <hat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: nocensorship@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: 18 Jul 2003 22:22:09 -0000

Would-be Internet censors in places such as China and Myanmar could have a
tougher time restricting the free flow of information, according to a
measure that the U.S. House of Representatives approved on Wednesday.

The legislation aims to create a federal Office of Global Internet Freedom
and gives it $16 million to spend over the next two years. The office would
be tasked with an unusual mission for a government agency: devising
technical methods to prevent other nations from censoring the Internet.

"These regimes have been aggressively blocking access to the Internet with
technologies such as firewalls, filters and black boxes," said Rep. Chris
Cox, R-Calif., sponsor of the bill and Chairman of the Homeland Security
Committee. "In addition, these oppressive regimes habitually monitor
activity on the Internet, including e-mail and message boards...The Global
Internet Freedom Act will give millions of people around the globe the
power to outwit repressive regimes that would silence them, and to protect
themselves from reprisals in the process." 

Cox's measure is embedded in a much larger bill--which the House approved
by a 382-42 vote--that would fund the State Department for the next few
years. It directs the Office of Global Internet Freedom to "develop and
implement a comprehensive global strategy to combat state-sponsored and
state-directed Internet jamming, and persecution of those who use the
Internet." In practice, the money will likely to go fund Web services that
let Internet users circumvent government restrictions.

An earlier version of the legislation, introduced in October, would have
given the office a far larger sum: $100 million over two years.

If the Senate follows the House's lead and approves the appropriations
bill, the new office would be organized under the Broadcasting Board of
Governors, a federal agency that was created in 1999 to consolidate
nonmilitary broadcasting by the federal government. It also is home to the
Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia.

As the Internet has grown in importance, some foreign governments have
moved to curb their citizens' abilities to access Web sites and other
resources in other nations.

A report titled "The Internet Under Surveillance," published last month by
Reporters Without Borders, a journalists' advocacy group, paints a stark
picture of an increasingly controlled Internet.

In Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), for instance, the ruling military
junta monitors e-mail and drastically limits access to the outside
Internet. "Fewer than 10,000 people are allowed to use the substitute
Internet, the local Myanmar Wide Web intranet set up by the regime, but
only a few dozen mainly service or administrative sites, all
government-approved, are accessible," the report says. "Even that is hard
to log on to, since until very recently, only one cybercafe, at the
university, had free access to Myanmar Wide Web."

Cox is a longtime China hawk who chaired the committee that investigated
whether the Clinton administration let the Chinese government acquire
sensitive missile technology in exchange for campaign contributions. Since
introducing his Global Internet Freedom Act last fall, Cox has taken pains
to highlight that country's human rights record.

"The Chinese government, and sadly, too many other regimes around the
world, have been aggressively blocking access to the Internet, monitoring
Internet activity and punishing those who seek only to share information,"
Cox testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission
last month.

Lance Cottrell, president of Anonymizer.com, which offers software for
online privacy and security, lauded moves such as Cox's to take
restrictions off Internet access.

"It's really important that we stand up and try to make free access to
information available--and that it not merely be piping in a particular
American perspective, but allowing these people access to any set of
opinions," Cottrell said. "There are a lot of places in the world that are
doing a lot of censorship. The Internet has an opportunity to live up to
its billing as the single greatest democratizing technology ever invented."

Resource: http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-1026690.html?tag=techdirt


--
Regards,
Hat
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