Internet Censorship

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http://rense.com/general69/intercens.htm

 

Internet Censorship

By Wayne Madsen

12-9-5

 

 

Internet censorship. It did not happen overnight but slowly came to

America's shores from testing grounds in China and the Middle East.

 

Progressive and investigative journalist web site administrators are

beginning to talk to each other about it, e-mail users are beginning

to understand why their e-mail is being disrupted by it, major search

engines appear to be complying with it, and the low to equal

signal-to-noise ratio of legitimate e-mail and spam appears to be

perpetuated by it.

 

In this case, " it, " is what privacy and computer experts have long

warned about: massive censorship of the web on a nationwide and global

scale. For many years, the web has been heavily censored in countries

around the world. That censorship continues at this very moment. Now

it is happening right here in America.

 

The agreement by the Congress to extend an enhanced Patriot Act for

another four years will permit the political enforcers of the Bush

administration, who use law enforcement as their proxies, to further

clamp censorship controls on the web.

 

 

 

 

 

Internet Censorship: The Warning Signs Were Not Hidden

 

The warning signs for the crackdown on the web have been with us for

over a decade. The Clipper chip controversy of the 90s, John

Poindexter's Total Information Awareness (TIA) system pushed in the

aftermath of 9-11, backroom deals between the Federal government and

the Internet service industry, and the Patriot Act have ushered in a

new era of Internet censorship, something just half a decade ago

computer programmers averred was impossible given the nature of the

web. They were wrong, dead wrong.

 

Take for example of what recently occurred when two journalists were

taking on the phone about a story that appeared on Google News. The

story was about a Christian fundamentalist move in Congress to use

U.S. military force in Sudan to end genocide in Darfur. The story

appeared on the English Google News site in Qatar. But the very same

Google News site when accessed simultaneously in Washington, DC failed

to show the article. This censorship is accomplished by geolocation

filtering: the restriction or modifying of web content based on the

geographical region of the user. In addition to countries, such

filtering can now be implemented for states, cities, and even

individual IP addresses.

 

With reports in the Swedish newspaper Svensa Dagbladet today that the

United States has transmitted a Homeland Security Department " no fly "

list of 80,000 suspected terrorists to airport authorities around the

world, it is not unreasonable that a " no [or restricted]

surfing/emailing " list has been transmitted to Internet Service

Providers around the world. The systematic disruptions of web sites

and email strongly suggests that such a list exists.

 

News reports on CIA prisoner flights and secret prisons are

disappearing from Google and other search engines like Alltheweb as

fast as they appear. Here now, gone tomorrow is the name of the game.

 

Google is systematically failing to list and link to articles that

contain explosive information about the Bush administration, the war

in Iraq, Al Qaeda, and U.S. political scandals. But Google is not

alone in working closely to stifle Internet discourse. America On

Line, Microsoft, and others are slowly turning the Internet into

an information superhighway dominated by barricades, toll booths,

off-ramps that lead to dead ends, choke points, and security checks.

 

America On Line is the most egregious is stifling Internet freedom. A

former AOL employee noted how AOL and other Internet Service Providers

cooperate with the Bush administration in censoring email. The Patriot

Act gave federal agencies the power to review information to the

packet level and AOL was directed by agencies like the FBI to do more

than sniff the subject line. The AOL term of service (TOS) has

gradually been expanded to grant AOL virtually universal power

regarding information. Many AOL users are likely unaware of the

elastic clause, which says they will be bound by the current TOS and

any TOS revisions which AOL may elect at any time in the future.

Essentially, AOL users once agreed to allow the censorship and

non-delivery of their email.

 

Microsoft has similar requirements for Hotmail as do and Google

for their respective e-mail services.

 

There are also many cases of Google's search engine failing to list

and link to certain information. According to a number of web site

administrators who carry anti-Bush political content, this situation

has become more pronounced in the last month. In addition, many web

site administrators are reporting a dramatic drop-off in hits to their

sites, according to their web statistic analyzers. Adding to their

woes is the frequency at which spam viruses are being spoofed as

coming from their web site addresses.

 

Government disruption of the political side of the web can easily be

hidden amid hyped mainstream news media reports of the latest

" boutique " viruses and worms, reports that have more to do with the

sales of anti-virus software and services than actual long-term

disruption of banks, utilities, or airlines.

 

 

 

Internet Censorship in the US: No Longer a Prediction

 

Google, Microsoft, , and Cisco Systems have honed their skills at

Internet censorship for years in places like China, Jordan, Tunisia,

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, and other countries.

They have learned well. They will be the last to admit they have

imported their censorship skills into the United States at the behest

of the Bush regime. Last year, the Bush-Cheney campaign blocked

international access to its web site -- www.georgewbush.com -- for

unspecified " security reasons. "

 

Only those in the Federal bureaucracy and the companies involved are

in a position to know what deals have been made and how extensive

Internet censorship has become. They owe full disclosure to their

customers and their fellow citizens.

 

 

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