by John Bottoms

Gone are the days when the internet was just a toy of college students and disaffected young people.  Today’s internet is a throwback to the heady days of our nation’s founding, with its passionate political debates on the great issues of the day.  The rich diversity of opinions available on internet sites stands in stark contrast to our newspapers and television news, which for the most part march in lockstep with whomever has scrambled to the top of the current political pile.  Taken as a whole, the internet is like Thomas Paine's Common Sense, which flamed the desire for freedom and independence in the American colonists.  It is our last public institution that cares about liberty, or any idea for that matter. 

Not just in the US, but all over the world, young people especially look to their favorite internet sites to get the facts, bypassing the vetted state-controlled propaganda organs, and are becoming bolder in their demands for a more liberal intellectual environment.  The internet may be the last truly independent medium for keeping the public informed, but a dangerously “loose cannon” to our power elites. 

The internet is more of a threat to the status quo than any medium of communication since printing became economical hundreds of years ago, especially with the likelihood of war, economic chaos, and political dissent in our near future.  In the recent worldwide anti-war demonstrations, the internet was critical in orchestrating “a sudden outpouring of opposition not coordinated or championed by any one group, any prominent politicians or media outlets, or even any well-established advocacy network.  It seemed to materialize from thin air.”  And during the congressional debate on the Bush war resolution, “House and Senate members were deluged with emails, faxes, petitions and phone calls from literally hundreds of thousands of constituents, most of them initiated by online campaigns.” 

But the internet’s threat is not just as a medium of political dissent.  A book by Syrian author Ahmed Zeidan claims that Al Qaeda is spreading its terrorist messages through Arabic websites, and recently reiterated in the mainstream news. 

Not surprisingly, authorities worldwide are responding to the loss of their propaganda monopoly by trying to restrict this free flow of information.

The EU’s hook into internet control is “hate speech.”  Buried in its prohibitions on racial prejudice is an attempt to outlaw sites which “deny, minimize, approve or justify crimes against humanity,” which could easily include critics of the US War on Terrorism.

The Chinese government is using a deadly fire at an underground Beijing internet café to enforce the licensing of such establishments, including identification of all users and records of which sites they visit.  Of course, the dangerously limited egress and locked doors of the café were only needed to allow the patrons to momentarily escape the prying eyes of the government, which may have started this most convenient of fires.

The Saudi government, probably the world’s leading internet censor, has spent the last two years ensuring that all internet traffic flows through state-controlled bottlenecks, where they can deny access to “unsuitable” websites.

Responding to the recent Moscow theater hostage crisis, our Russian “allies” have implemented a policy of shutting down news media which don't tow the party line “during terror crises” like the recent incident.

Meanwhile, our Australian friends continue their journey to the dark side, now threatening to block their citizens’ access to websites used to organize political protests, part of a major national crackdown on internet “crime.”

And what of the US in these days of Ashcroftian zero tolerance?

Here too, there are signs of growing government impatience with internet freedom.  Back in early 2001, our government’s interests leaned toward using the internet as a tool of freedom, funding “Triangle Boy” software to help Chinese users bypass their government's restrictions on internet access.  But times have changed, and funding for the project was cancelled shortly after 9-11.

More ominous, with the recently hyped melding of the Drug War into the Terror War, drug law enforcement is the perfect excuse to limit internet freedom.  Last December, the National Drug Intelligence Center listed drug offenders, drug-culture advocates, advocates of an expanded freedom of expression, and anarchist individuals and groups [emphasis mine] as subjects of expanded scrutiny.  The latter two groups are purely political designations, having nothing to do with illegal drug use or illegal activity of any kind.  The NDIC’s report describes plans to investigate and surveil such groups and individuals, but stops just short of police action, for now.

Recent fortuitously timed attacks on the internet, which may have originated in the US and South Korea (home to a large US government presence), have given a big push to the new Cyber Security Enhancement Act (CSEA), which tasks Ashcroft’s people with protecting the internet and creates a “National Infrastructure Protection Center” to carry out the mission.  But the line between protecting and controlling is slim indeed; consider our airports. 

Of course, there's lots of historical precedent for government crackdowns on free speech, especially during times of war.  During the Civil War, Lincoln shut down newspapers all across the US, and even jailed uncooperative journalists, editors and publishers.  Starting in 1917, Woodrow Wilson arrested those who protested his war, along with those thought to be communists or anarchists.  Even during the early years of our country, the 1798 Sedition Act attempted to silence political opposition to the Federalist Party’s agenda. 

Both history and recent events here and abroad make clear the peril facing free speech on the internet.  This last bastion of public political dissent may remain safe only as long as big government/big media are able to sway a majority to their side.  So far their propaganda campaign is working well enough that voters declined to throw the warmongering Republicans out of office (though given the alternative, who can really blame them?).  But the risks are growing since they are barely able to maintain majority support, even with their full court press in preparation for the imminent Iraq attack. 

If the Terror War starts to go badly (which is all but certain), and the survival of the empire-building police-statists who now infest the government in Washington depends on controlling the message, they know they'll have to shut us down.  The groundwork has been laid, and it's again time to pay the price of freedom with our vigilance as we enter this dangerous period in our nation's history.