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January 21, 2005
Be Thankful for our Freedoms
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!
Posted January 21, 2005 06:12 AM
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Comments
remembered a joke about an American and a Soviet ( at that time).
americans were trying to tell the Soviet that they have freedom. Soviet asks what it means. American says, " we can criticize our president and still remain free." Soviet says, " no big deal, we criticize your president too, and we also remain free. "
been in china a couple of times. don't feel restricted at all. In fact, a good number of their hotels now have broadband in their hotels.
of course, you don't invite trouble, just like you don't walk on a dark alley alone. if you want to criticize the government, do it elsewhere (grin)...
Posted by: wilson ng at January 21, 2005 06:35 AM
Amen to freedom, Jeff.
Posted by: Anita Campbell at January 21, 2005 10:37 PM
at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. He consults with a variety of businesses on start-up and growth related issues, and with larger corporations on re-establishing entrepreneurial cultures within their organizations. Dr. Cornwall's current research interests include entrepreneurial finance and entrepreneurial ethics. He has authored or co-authored four books.
