Thought Stew with Carrots and Peas too

Here is an excerpt from my thesis on Internet Regulation and censorship. I got an F….LOL! What do you think?

The internet represents threats to our moral conscience and national security but the internet also represents the greatest expression of freedom of speech, a right we historically hold above all others. Freedom of speech is the foundation of all of our rights as human beings, as such; the internet should not be regulated by any government or governmental agency.

 First I would address the threat that exists to national security. The tone that has been popular among conservative voices is that freedom of speech should be secondary to national security. I would argue that acts of Congress such as The Patriots Act serve to perpetuate the type of secrecy and fearful environment in which terror and those who wish to commit acts of terror thrive. Winston Churchill said it best when he stated; “You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. Yet in their hearts there is unspoken - unspeakable! - Fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts!,  Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse - a little tiny mouse! -of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.” By altering the freedoms that have sustained the United States as a sovereign nation for two hundred years we may be altering the course ahead towards one of uncertainty.

 Secondly, there are myths and suppositions that should be answered before we can see any real progress in eradicating internet censorship. The consensus that exist and that fuel proponents of internet censorship is an idea that the internet is a chaotic uncontrolled beast that represents anarchy and criminal activity.  I agree that the internet contains criminal elements but doesn’t our brick and mortar society contain these elements also? I believe that the web is an extension of our world.  As some have already pointed out in an article by Christopher Shea, Boston Globe; Sovereignty in Cyberspace two legal scholars puncture the myth of the borderless, lawless internet. - third edition , that the truth however is that the internet is regulated by many countries as information approaches their borders so it is a myth that the web is not regulated at least in some degree. I would further argue that the censorship that exists should not be.

 In compromise, I would argue that it should be required by ISP’s to create, offer and maintain filtering software for customers who wish to use them. Filtering should not be imposed on any citizen of any country. The pattern of self regulation has worked with other forms of media such as radio and television. If one chooses not to watch or listen than they do not. So it should be with the web.

As a new democracy the internet should be protected as a place for free exchange of ideas. The United States has a foreign policy of intervening and aiding fledgling new democracies, this should be the case for the internet. A bill introduced in February 2006 by Representative Christopher Smith was dead on introduction.  As Hiawatha Bray reported in the Boston Globe in an article dated February 17^th, 2006 entitled Bill aims to fight Net Censorship; “The bill was entitled The Global Online Freedom Act and would have done just as I have proposed. Under the plans of the bill, the State Department would establish an office to support internet freedom worldwide and issue annual reports tracking the extant of Internet censorship in other countries. American firms would be placed under significant restrictions in dealing with such countries.”  The bill has not furthered and was cleared from being debated on the House floor. In spite of this setback recent hope is on the horizon in the form of the reintroduction of the bill that has been recommended for further debate as recent as January 2008. The bill is H.R. 275 and can be read in detail at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-275 , retrieved February 27^th, 2008. Eventually the Internet may be regarded as a land that has an inherent constitution and independence from dictatorships and those who would censor, regulate or control its borders.

The United States as it did in 1776 has now in 2008, made the first steps toward a new understanding of independence. I applaud these first few steps to combat tyranny and understand that there is no threat to national security in securing our freedoms. The greatest threat that exists is the ability for terrorist to win by convincing us to destroy ourselves from within by fostering a belief that our freedoms are not worth defending or have somehow become obsolete.