US warns of gov'ts trying to control the Internet
By BRADLEY KLAPPER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration warned Friday that governments
around the world are extending their repression to the Internet, seeking
to cut off their citizens' access to websites and other means of
communication to stave off the types of revolutions that have wracked
the Middle East.
The State Department's annual human rights report paints a worrying
picture of countries "spending more time, money and attention in efforts
to curtail access to these new communications outlets." More than 40
governments are now blocking their citizens' access to the Internet, and
the firewalls, regulatory restrictions and technologies are all
"designed to repress speech and infringe on the personal privacy of
those who use these rapidly evolving technologies."
Presenting the mammoth, 7,000-page report, Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton said curtailing Internet freedom meant violating the
fundamental rights of expression, assembly and association.
"Democracy and human rights activists and independent bloggers found
their emails hacked or their computers infected with spyware that
reported back on their every keystroke," Clinton said. "Digital
activists have been tortured so they would reveal their passwords and
implicate their colleagues."
Clinton singled out Myanmar and Cuba for government policies that seek
to preempt any online dissent by keeping almost their entire populations
off the Internet.
But they are far from alone.
The report criticizes Saudi Arabia, a vital U.S. ally but one opposing
the Obama administration's push for democratic reforms in the Arab
world, for spying on e-mail and chat rooms, and blocking sites about
religions such as Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity. The conservative
Sunni kingdom also prevented people from reaching webpages about forms
of Islam deemed incompatible with Sharia law and national regulations,
according to the report.
During its election, the Sudanese government blocked access to a website
monitoring votes.
Vietnamese authorities orchestrated attacks against important sites and
spied on dissident bloggers, arresting 25 last year and forcibly
entering the homes of others to confiscate computers and cell phones.
And the Chinese government, among the world's most sensitive to any sign
of dissent, tightly controlled content on the Internet and detained
people for expressing critical views of the government or its policies.
Clinton noted that the report is being released during a wave of unrest
across the Arab world. She said the U.S. has been "inspired by the
courage and determination of the activists in the Middle East and North
Africa and in other repressive societies, who have demanded peaceful
democratic change and respect for their universal human rights."
In Egypt and Tunisia, activists aided by Twitter and similar websites
were able to mobilize massive demonstrations that brought down their
long-time leaders. The Internet and mobile phone technologies have
helped give voice to similar protest movements in Syria, Yemen, Bahrain
and elsewhere. And violence continues in Libya, where strongman Moammar
Gadhafi is refusing to heed the call of many nations to leave power.
The unrest has led many governments to reassess how open they want to
be, fearful of seeing their authority challenged by individuals
determined to gain a greater say in governance.
Michael Posner, U.S. assistant secretary of state for human rights, said
the Obama administration is spending a lot of time trying to figure out
what governments around the world are doing to control the Internet. He
said two main methods are being employed.
"Some governments - the Chinese would be an example, the Iranians - put
up a firewall," Posner told reporters. But, "most governments aren't
going to shut down the Internet. They are simply going to go after the
people who use it that are dissenters. So they hack into their
computers, they take their cell phones when they are arrested and they
grab the list of names that are in their address book. They use every
technical capacity they have to invade privacy, to monitor what these
dissenters are doing."
To aid people seeking to speak out, the U.S. government is helping to
finance circumvention technologies to avoid firewalls, he said. To deal
with governments hacking computers or intimidating dissenters, the U.S.
government has trained 5,000 people from around the world on how to
leave less of a trace on the Internet.
"It's one of the most innovative things we're doing," Posner said. "In a
lot of cases, people who are using the Internet in these societies
aren't sufficiently mindful either of what their possibilities are
technically to protect themselves, or what the risks are."
Clinton highlighted a couple of other worrying trends in human rights
around the world.
She said there has been a "widespread crackdown" on civil society
activists, whose work is vital so that governments understand the needs
of their people. Venezuela's government has intimidated such groups
through the courts and new restrictions on independent media. And in
Russia, there have been violent crackdowns on campaigners and numerous
attacks and murders of journalists and activists, she said.
In other places, the most pressing problem was the repression of
vulnerable racial, ethnic and religious minorities, as well as gays and
lesbians, Clinton said. She cited Pakistan as a problem country because
blasphemy remains a crime punishable by death, and two government
officials who sought to change the law were assassinated. Other
extremist attacks have killed dozens of people just for practicing their
religion in Iraq, Egypt and Nigeria, while Iranian authorities executed
more than 300 people last year.
Among the countries which improved their respect for human rights,
Clinton cited Colombia, Guinea and Indonesia.
She said the U.S. "will stand with those who exercise their fundamental
freedoms of expression and assembly in a peaceful way, whether in
person, in print or in pixels on the Internet."
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/08/v-fullstory/2157242/us-warns-of-govts-trying-to-control.html
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