Technology Helps Censored Bloggers from Persecuted

60 countries are implementing web censorship in 2009! That is twice as many as in 2008!

There are a record number of bloggers behind bars! 120, the highest in Internet's history! technology empowerment comes at a cost for many around the world. Yet technology may also be finally coming to the rescue of the bloggers.

Reporters Sans Frontières of Reporters Without Borders is opening an online anti-censorship shelter for journalists, bloggers and dissidents whose work is being curtailed by the creeping censorship in cyberspace.

Launched last week, this "anti-censorship shelter", claims Reporters Without Borders, is the first ever online refuge for free speech that will use state-of-the-art censorship-circumvention and encryption software to by pass sophisticated censorship technology.

It will also connect to the digital security firm XeroBank through a high-speed anonymity network, while the press freedom organization says it has plans for a dedicated website for hosting banned content and a multimedia hub hosting film and video as well.

All this, hopes Reporters Without Borders,will provide bloggers with free access to secure, online connections to make it harder for authorities to pursue them for their work. "This will allow them to connect to the internet securely, to help them continue as bloggers," said secretary general of RSF Jean-Francois Julliard.

Indeed at a time when online filtering and surveillance is becoming more and more widespread, this is a notable development demonstrating that technology can cut technology too.

Even as the Internet offers a unique space for discussion and information-sharing, in authoritarian countries where the traditional media are state-controlled, latest technological tools have also come in handy censoring political and social content.

"Never before have there been so many netizens in prison in countries such as China, Vietnam and Iran for expressing their views freely online. Anonymity is becoming more and more important for those who handle sensitive data," noted Reporters Without Borders.

Reporters Without Borders adds that the World Wide Web is being progressively devoured by the implementation of national Intranets whose content is "approved" by the authorities. "It does not matter to those governments if more and more Internet users become victims of a digital segregation. Web 2.0 is colliding with Control 2.0," RWB said.

It is a few rare countries, such as North Korea, Burma and Turkmenistan, that completely cut themselves off from the World Wide Web -- not because of a lack of infrastructure development, because it serves their purpose.

Interestingly, this new "censorship shelter" comes at time when 40 or so countries began a new round of talks on the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in the Swiss city of Lucerne yesterday.

According to Reporters Without Borders, this shelter could also serves something of a plea for the ACTA negotiators not to sacrifice Internet free speech and access to online information in an effort to combat piracy and the counterfeiting of copyrighted works.

The European Commission draft of the ACTA released on 21 April, revealed that there are several provisions that could possibly threated online free expression, including the possibility of Internet users being disconnected, the lack of protection for personal information and the intention to turn ISPs and other technical intermediaries into "copyright policemen" who would in turn probably introduce Internet filtering systems.

The document shows that member states are pushing for non-commercial online copyright infringement to be punishable by imprisonment as well. This would include private copies, which are legal in several countries.

Imprisonment would also apply in cases of "complicity" and "incitement," which experts say are extremely vague concepts that could be interpreted very broadly in certain countries with grave potential consequences for free expression.

The negotiations have been conducted confidentially for more than two years between the European Union, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Morocco, Mexico, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Canada and Switzerland without any consultation with NGOs and civil society representatives.

Written By: Tom Retterbush