Should The U.S. Government Be A Foreign Censorship Buster?
In the wake of Google’s threat to pull out of China over allegations that Chinese hackers penetrated the company’s computer systems and stole intellectual property, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech last week extolling the five freedoms of the Internet age, what should U.S. government policy be on Internet freedom abroad? Some senators, Sam Brownback and Arlen Specter for example, say the U.S. government should directly back censorship-busting technologies and policies. Critics say this will backfire by allowing regimes such as China and particularly Iran to say, “Look how Washington is trying to interfere in our countries again.” How hard should the U.S. government push for unfettered access to the Internet in foreign countries, particularly the closed ones? And what should the Obama administration’s role be in this dispute between China and Google? What other tools can the U.S. use to push worldwide Internet freedom? To inform the discussion, here’s a little back
