Senate Bill to Subsidize Anti-Censorware Research

Senators Wyden (D-Ore.) and Kyl (R-Ariz.) introduced the Global Internet Freedom Act earlier this month, setting aside $60 million over two years "to develop and deploy technologies to defeat Internet jamming and censorship." Of course they don't mean libraries and schools in this country -- they're talking about countries like China, as Kyl et al. explain in a National Review article a few days ago. I guess it wasn't confusing enough to (1) subsidize censorware and (2) criminalize researching it -- we also need to (3) subsidize researching it. How about forbidding American corporations from trading censorware goods or services to these "repressive governments," wouldn't that be a good start? Update: 10/30 03:37 GMT by J : Here's the Wired story from early this month on the version that was introduced in the House.

(Sen. Wyden also teamed up last month with Sen. Cox (R-Calif.) on a little bitty resolution standing up for your fair use rights before the tank parade of the DMCA.)

Comments

Re:True, for if there is no sin to resist

[Apreche]

Oh, the vatican has a great collection of erotica eh? That must be why only the priests in America are raping little boys. The ones in Italy get to jerk off to porn instead!

Not New News

[Anonymous Coward]

This bill is not new news (see Wired article) and was introduced so late in the session of the 107th Congressthat it has no chance of passing (introduced on Oct 10 with only 6 working days left). Basically, it is a feel good measure for chest-thumping politicians with no real expectation of the bills passage. Neither Kyl or Wyden are up for re-election this year but opposing "repressive regimes" and supporting the "free world" always makes good sound bites.

If you based "repressive" on the laws passed, we would qualify... CIPA (Child Internet Protection Act - 106th H.R.4577 - law 106-554), COPA (Child Online Protection Act - 105th H.R.4328 - law 105-277), CPPA (The Child Pornography Protection Act - 104th H.R.3610 - law 104-208), CDA (Communications Decency Act - 104th S.652 - law 104-104), USA PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism - 107th H.R.3162 - law 107-056),

You can go look at the Center for Democracy and Technology legislative reports and the Electronic Frontier Foundation Action Center and the proliferation of groups like the Center for Digital Democracy, Digital Speech Project, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse to understand that these are not isolated examples.

Re:Real Money . . .

[JJ]

Bravo.

I didn't think the readership of slashdor would be familiar with the speeches of Barry Goldwater however.