President Bush used his inaugural address to focus on spreading freedom around the globe. As an American blogger, I found this piece from Red Herring on the lack of freedom for bloggers in China (and other countries) a poignant reminder of how precious our freedoms really are.
"The Chinese government is notorious for its aggressive censorship of dissent and obscenity on the Internet. Human Rights Watch produced a report on the country's Internet surveillance activities in August 2001. Besides China, countries that monitor web surfers' reading habits include Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam. But China is the most persistent, says Nart Villeneuve, director of technical research at the OpenNet Initiative, a collaboration of three academic groups that analyzes Internet filtering and surveillance.
"For the past year, the Chinese government has been filtering blogs. Censors have filters at all levels, from Internet service providers to Internet cafes. The OpenNet Initiative recently released a study detailing how three Chinese blog providers-blogdriver.com, blogbus.com, and blogcn.com-have filtering mechanisms to control the content of the blogs they host."
Too often we take our precious freedoms for granted. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, free markets. God bless America!
