Why The U.S. Is The World's No.1 Threat To Internet Freedom
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Yet more than two years after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave her first speech declaring "Internet freedom" to be a major component of U.S. foreign policy, it turns out that many of the most sophisticated tools used to suppress online free speech and dissent around the world are actually Made in the USA. American corporations are major suppliers of software and hardware used by all sorts of governments to carry out censorship and surveillance -- and not just dictatorships. Inconveniently, governments around the democratic world are pushing to expand their own censorship and surveillance powers as they struggle to address genuine problems related to cybercrime, cyberwar, child protection, and intellectual property.
Even more inconveniently, the U.S. government is the biggest and most powerful customer of American-made surveillance technology, shaping the development of those technologies as well as the business practices and norms for public-private collaboration around them. As long as the U.S. government continues to support the development of a surveillance-technology industry that clearly lacks concern for the human rights and civil liberties implications of its business -- even rewarding secretive and publicly unaccountable behavior by these companies -- the world's dictators will remain well supplied by a robust global industry.
American-made technology has turned up around the Middle East and North Africa over the past year -- from Syria to Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, from pre-revolutionary Tunisia to Egypt -- in contexts that leave no doubt that the software and hardware in question were being used to censor dissenting speech and track activists. While much of this technology is considered "dual use" because it can be used to defend computer networks against cyberattack as well as to censor and monitor political speech, some members of Congress are seeking to prevent its use for political repression. To that end, the Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA), which passed through the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights last week, takes aim not only at U.S.-headquartered companies but also overseas companies funded by U.S. capital markets.
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Make no mistake: American tech companies are up to their eyeballs in bad behavior. Despite industry and government efforts to keep the media in the dark about a traveling trade show for surveillance technology known as the "Wiretappers' Ball," recent media reports have revealed the extent to which American corporate innovations in surveillance technology are driven by U.S. government demand. And the U.S. government is by far those companies' biggest customer.
According to the Washington Post, at last year's trade show just outside Washington in Northern Virginia, 35 federal agencies as well as representatives from state and local law enforcement mixed with representatives of 43 countries. Despite the Obama administration's proclaimed commitment to Internet freedom, the executive branch of the U.S. government makes no effort to be honest or transparent with the American public about the types of surveillance technologies it is sourcing and purchasing, what capabilities these technologies have, or which other governments are purchasing these technologies.
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the entire outrageous story: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/03/The_Worlds_No_1_Threat_to_Internet_Freedom
And you can bet the US government is using the same sotware to monitor groups here.
This is on Obama's head. I don't care when it was started because he sure hasn't stopped it. In fact he appears to have expanded it.
'The Wiretappers' Ball'? seriously?
And all the Vulcan Salutes in the world won't make it right!
= new reply since forum marked as read
