Foreign countries who like to censor the Internet – like China, Myanmar, and Iran, among others – might have a harder time doing it if Congress has its way: the House passed a bill July 16 to create a federal Office of Global Internet Freedom, with a $16 million budget for two years, to develop technology to stop those countries from censoring the Net.
"These regimes have been aggressively blocking access to the Internet with technologies such as firewalls, filters and black boxes," said Rep. Chris Cox, R-Calif., sponsor of the bill and Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, to CNET. "In addition, these oppressive regimes habitually monitor activity on the Internet, including e-mail and message boards...The Global Internet Freedom Act will give millions of people around the globe the power to outwit repressive regimes that would silence them, and to protect themselves from reprisals in the process."
Cox's legislation was part of a larger bill to fund the State Department for the next several years. An earlier version of the bill, CNET said, would have given the new office a lot more money, $100 million for two years.
If the Senate joins and approves the State bill including the Cox measure, the Office of Global Internet Freedom would become part of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, CNET said, an agency created four years ago to consolidate non-military government broadcasting, and including the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Free Asia.
