Repressing For Dollars

Where is the ACLU?

American corporations are trampling over free speech and helping identify and punish people whose only crime is a desire for democracy.

The ACLU is nowhere on this issue because the offenses are in China, where Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco, Google, Sun Microsystems and others are helping China build the most thorough and repressive internet filters available. Use a "black" word in China -- something like "democracy" or "freedom" for example -- and you're likely to be arrested and imprisoned.

With Bill Gates profiting in the process.

This is all old news of course, but there's a good wrap-up article in the International Herald Trib that will get your dander up all over again -- or raise it for the first time, if this is news to you.

And what can we do? How do you live without Microsoft nowdays? What influence can you have on Google?

Ironically, what's needed are laws requiring US companies to not support restrictions on Internet free speech in foreign companies. But how do we do that without giving in to US pornographers who equate free speech with unlimited access to porn by kids, and kiddy porn by pedophiles?