The topic of Internet control and censorship is one that is increasingly of concern to everyone. While the Internet has promoted a free flow of uncensored information, technology is now working AGAINST that free exchange. Business Week (1/23) has is an article entitled:
The Great Firewall of China - How a vast security network and compliant multinationals keep the mainland's Net under Beijing's thumb
There's an interesting difference between that ominous and totalitarian sounding title and online content http://www.businessweek.com/...
where the online article by the same author is more "moderately" titled:
Testing China's Web Tolerance - Amid debate over Net giants assisting Beijing'S censors, local entrepreneurs are exploring free speech -- and self-censorship, too
The difference in title and tenor of the articles was interesting. I wonder if Business Week is itself "self-censoring" online content. But - this topic goes far deeper and is far more important than simple censorship.
FAR more............
The online article seems to downplay censorship and concerns.... you'd think that it's not a big deal and that political content is not of concern - that the focus is on more prurient things.
Gary Wang doesn't quite see what all the fuss is about. Wang is the founder of Toodou, a Shanghai startup that lets Chinese post podcasts and video blogs. While free-speech advocates in the U.S. attack Microsoft, Yahoo! (YHOO ), Google (GOOG ), and others, Wang says the situation doesn't appear nearly so grim at Ground Zero of the censorship battle.
Limits on expression are "getting more and more relaxed," he says. "The trend is becoming more open, more tolerant."
................ The Chinese have had much success in controlling the first generation of the Internet, where content has come largely from organized entities such as newspapers that are relatively easy to monitor.
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By some accounts, the government has little reason to worry. Why? Because for now, many of the players getting into the business do much of the monitoring themselves. Podlook, a startup that offers a directory of podcasts and video blogs, tries to make sure it doesn't cross the line by posting links to audio or video that could anger the government. "First we check the source," says Jack Gu, Podlook's founder. "In China, there is a firewall. If the site cannot pass the firewall, we will not connect to it."
TOO MUCH SKIN. And local sites generally regulate their content. At Toodou (the name means "potato" in Mandarin), about a dozen people -- some of them Toodou employees and others podcasting enthusiasts who volunteer their time -- watch or listen to everything in advance. "They want to help us keep our Web site clean and make sure we don't get shut down," Wang says.
So far, most of the questions are not about political topics but about sex -- whether a video shows too much skin, for instance. Censorship "is one of the minor things we worry about," says Wang, who recently received backing from Boston-based International Data Group. "There are tons of other things we will be faced with if we scale up."
This is a bit different that the magazine article which talks of the scope and scale of China's policing efforts
The agencies that watch over the Net employ more than 30,000 people to prowl Web sites, blogs, and chat rooms on the lookout for offensive content as well as scammers. In the US, by contrast, the entire CIA employs an estimated 16,000 people.
...............All Internet traffic entering or leaving China must pass through government controlled gateways - that is, banks of compuers - where e-mail and Web-site requests are monitored. E-mail with offending words such as "Taiwan independence" or "democracy" can be pulled aside and trashed. And when a mainland computer user tries to open a page that's blacklisted, the gateway will simply deny access. Search for "Tiananmen Massacre" in China, for example, and 90 of the top 100 sites that mention it are blocked........
Three points -
1)China has a HUGE number of people employed in this effort WITH technological support AND "self-censoring at work - there are "filters" that screen out content with objectionable words and more (detailed later).
2)The comparison with the CIA is bogus. The US seems to employ massive AUTOMATED digital screening efforts through NSA and others. And I recall an article noting that Federal employment has increased dramatically under this Administration - much of it NOT being broken down (as was past practice) "for reasons of National Security." Just how many people ARE keeping track of US internet use and who is being monitored? sure seems like there 's a tie in to NSA here. Just WHAT is being monitored?, how? and by who?. The request for Google Searches - ostensibly to monitor kiddie porn sure seems bogus to me. Have the FBI do their own Google Searches and investigate what pops up. Shutting down the sources is simpler and more effective than blanket screening.
3)Technology has changed - and IS changing immensely. The Soviet Union fell in part because the regime could NOT control the flow of information - they could "not lock up every copier and mimeo machine in the country." Copies of the "Pentagon Papers" helped bring down Nixon. But information is increasingly digital and online. It can spread easier and faster BUT the technology of CONTROL is also advancing.
Our own Bill of Rights did not anticipate the amount of information that now flows and the paths it takes. (a related article in Business Week on the collection of CONSUMER information - spending habits and all - should scare everyone concerned with privacy... in effect there is none anymore).
But back to China:
Virtually all Net outfits on the mainland are given a confidential list of hundreds of banned terms they have to watch for. The list changes over time, based on events such as the recent police shootings in the southern town of Dongzhou.
To BLOCK content, you have to be able to effectively screen for and search for that content.
There's far more on all this in the article and the whole topic of US companies being complicit in enabling such efforts. China IS "managing" Internet use, and so are other countries. When you're "screening" or "searching" for data, you can also pause and look closer at what you've found. There are serious implications beyond censorship that extend into political freedom AND things like economic espionage or even blackmail... Why prosecute a prominent politician who is receiving kiddie porn if you can use that to your advantage. Wasn't there a diary in the last week detailing scandals elsewhere where top levels of government and society overseas were involved in some horrendous things? But back to the more mundane issue of searches and screening.
If China can do it, so can the US.
I also remember a mild uproar over the US wanting DIRECT access and CONTROL over Internet switching sites a few months back. What is the US doing? What are we trying to do? How much of his really relates to "terror?"
Beyond individual rights and privacy there are ENORMOUS implications for Internet "screening" - relating to confidentiality for govenrments and business.
I read an article once on how the Great European Powers ALL had extensive "black room" operations whose whole purpose was the monitoring of the mails. Wax seals were readily subverted. It was EXPECTED that mail would be read. One paragraph noted that the English Ambassador in one country filed a formal complaint that he was receivig the COPIES made of correspondence instead of the originals. This spying was focused on EVERYTHING - political and commercial and the information put to use - by governments AND individuals. Fortunes were made on stock markets using "pilfered" confidential information. Think of the power - and possibilities for profit in an exponentially expanded effort.
But back to the more mundane aspect of censorship and control:
New Republic also has an article on this topic -
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But if the Internet played a role in counteracting the Islamist agenda in Israel, it has probably been a blessing to Islamists in Iran: that is, a boon to the status quo. The Iranian government seems to have figured out how to use the medium to its advantage: Over the past four years, the regime's strategy of social control over the Internet has switched from sweeping security crackdowns to the more subtle practice of technological filtration, accompanied by the periodic jailing of some bloggers. No other Muslim country, to my knowledge, has gone through a similar evolution. Back in May 2001, Tehran police shut down more than 400 cyber cafés in advance of the country's June elections. Four years later, the government has replaced such clumsy measures with more targeted efforts against specific kinds of Internet use. According to OpenNet Initiative, a collaborative partnership among Harvard Law School, the University of Toronto, and the University of Cambridge, the regime has adopted "one of the world's most substantial Internet censorship regimes." And it's what the government is--and isn't--censoring that's particularly noteworthy: "Currently, Iran's filtering focuses on Iran-related, and particularly Farsi-language, content. Non-Iran specific sites, such as news, human rights, and foreign government pages, are subject to less filtering, though pornography, sex, gay, and some proxy and circumvention Web sites are subject to censorship with varying degrees of effort." In other words, the sites that could really hurt the government--those maintained by Iranian political dissidents--are heavily censored. By contrast, foreign sites that allow Iranians to participate at a distance in Western culture are less likely to be blocked.
Meanwhile, Iran's public sphere is becoming less, rather than more, permissive. In the summer of 1998, I observed a relaxing of restrictions on public displays of affection, Western music, and other hot button issues of domestic concern--a shift that was widely discussed and commonly credited to the reformist president. Today, those concessions are being rolled back; for instance, Iran's new president has banned Western music from all radio broadcasts. Hardliners are freer than they were several years ago to mold public behavior according to their ideals--perhaps because liberals are freer than they were several years ago to experience global culture at home according to their whims.
The benefits of the Internet to Iran's political status quo do not, of course, preclude the medium's exploitation by dissidents and aspiring revolutionaries. Tragically, however, ambitious elites who would foment change in Tehran may find most members of the growing cyberclass to be unwilling to fight alongside them--for the simple reason that their more modest dreams for Iran have already been achieved, albeit not on the streets. As Americans debate whether to permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, we shouldn't count on the Internet to save us. Instead, we may have to go ahead and save ourselves.
Emphasis added in bold above. The bolded line points to a more subtle and devious effort - where Internet use is MANIPULATED to achieve governmental goals.
BUT, again, Internet control and censorship may be only the TIP of a far larger iceberg.
I suspect ALL of this is related to NSA activities and that Congress should NOT be too narrow in its focus.
FAR larger issues over the control and exchange of ANY information - worldwide as well as domestically - need open debate.
This all has little to do with "terrorism" or "child porn" - the excuses proffered by our government to justify what are likely extensive and astoundingly broad "data mining" efforts.
Think about the possibilities now inherent in the technology now available - this is not the 18th or 19th century and we are now not just opening letters in the Vienna post office.......
ANY and ALL information going through the digital highway CAN be "searched, screened, evaluated and CONTROLLED" if access is available in the right portal locations Back to the objections from Europe over US attempts to take control of certain switching locations....what was the intent there?
Orwell could not dream of the possibilities inherent in such power. I am afraid that some now in power - In China, Mynamar, Iran and even here in the United States - may grasp the possibilities.... political power, ecnomic fortunes, and mass manipulation...
Is THIS the far larger issue that scares EVERYONE that has REFUSED to grant our President power to proceed on - as yet still ill-defined "surveillance" (surveillance that is light years beyond mere "wiretaps " on phone lines) without warrants?
The whole issue of information control needs to be addressed in ANY "hearings" on FISA. WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON? You can bet that our President will NOT want ANY detailed discussion of such issues for reasons of "National Security."
BUT if there were real uses for all this in the "War on Terror" and REAL successes, they should be clear and obvious - instead all reports seem to indicate that the powers being sought have NOT been productive in fighting "terrorists."
So.... What's REALLY going on? WHAT is being monitored?
We know this Administration.... you CAN'T trust them. There have already beern reports of "training missions" related to FISA intercepts where Colin Powell's communications were targeted... who else has been targeted? reporters? "whistleblowers"? Democratic Candidates?
I can't help but think about what Clinton said about FISA protecting HIM - about WANTING control and checks and the temptation to use such power for political advantage?
WHAT power is he referring to? What power does our current President really have and how is HE using it - WITHOUT supervision?