… Meanwhile, the noose is increasingly tightening around the Internet, one of the last places where there is still some semblance of free speech. Under the guise of protecting copyrighted materials, many countries around the world are getting tough on the ‘illegal’ downloaders, with penalties ranging from barring broadband access to heavy fines.
The irony is that the artists, the very people those Orwellian measures purported to protect, are quick to criticize the Orwellian measures.
In another more extreme, if not ridiculous, example, AP news agency goes after a little known blogger for publishing fragments of their news articles and reports.
It seems that their lies and propaganda get exposed so often by the army of bloggers that they have now chosen to resort to such blatant intimidations – the move of a liar protecting his lies.
Alongside the intimidations, major ISPs are throttling users with high bandwidth usage.
Some ISPs even hire a company to monitor and hijack websites that these users visit. All those measures serve to do one thing: discourage users from accessing the Internet. And where will they turn for news if not from the web?
The TV with ‘fair and balanced’ Fox News, of course!
In the background, the wiretapping measures continue to be enacted.
The US Congress has just passed the new surveillance bill, which combines the worst of all alternative bills.
It both allows retroactive immunity to the telecoms and gives sweeping surveillance power to the government. Even Sweden, the country that hosts controversial sites such as Wikileaks and The Pirate Bay, has passed a bill that allows wiretapping, cross-border, of all telephone and Internet communications.
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