U.S. Initiatives to Promote Global Internet Freedom: Issues, Policy, and Technology

The openness and the freedom of expression allowed through blogs, social networks, video sharing sites, and other tools of todays communications technology has proven to be an unprecedented and often disruptive force in some closed societies. Governments that seek to maintain their authority and control the ideas and information their citizens receive are often caught in a dilemma they feel that they need access to the Internet to participate in commerce in the global market and for economic growth and technological development, but fear that allowing open access to the Internet potentially weakens their control over their citizens. Legislation now under consideration in the 111th Congress would mandate that U.S. companies selling Internet technologies and services to repressive countries take actions to combat censorship and protect personally identifiable information. Some believe, however, that technology can offer a complementary and, in some cases, better and more easily implemented solution to some of those issues. They argue that hardware and Internet services, in and of themselves, are neutral elements of the Internet it is how they are implemented by various countries that is repressive. Also, Internet services are often tailored for deployment to specific countries however, such tailoring is done to bring the company in line with the laws of that country, not with the intention of allowing the country to repress and censor its citizenry. This report provides information regarding the role of U.S. and other foreign companies in facilitating Internet censorship by repressive regimes overseas. The report is divided into several sections Examination of repressive policies in China and Iraq, Relevant U.S. laws, U.S. policies to promote Internet freedom, Private sector initiatives, and Congressional action. Two appendixes describe technologies and mechanisms for censorship and circumvention of government restrictions