[Reader-list] Host not found - Hari Kunzru on internet censorship

[peter griffin]

Host not found

Dissidents must be protected from internet censorship, argues Hari Kunzru in
an essay for a PEN anthology, Another Sky.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,2046857,00.html


An extract:
Social panic about terrorism and paedophilia means that there is strong
public support in most western democracies for mandatory state access to
private communications. In the permanent state of pseudo-war under which we
now live, interior ministers constantly remind us that civil liberties must
be balanced against the exigencies of security. Technologies such as strong
encryption and anonymous remailing must, they tell us, be kept out of the
hands of the public. Employment of such technologies must constitute
reasonable cause for surveillance. Encryption keys must be handed over on
demand. Local ISPs must be forced to surrender data when required,
preferably through real-time automated "black box" monitors, connected to
their systems. Monitoring of voice and data traffic by the US (and perhaps,
one day, by China) must be facilitated. The list goes on.

Unfortunately for us complacent beneficiaries of liberal democracy there is
a paradox at work here. The technologies that provide anonymity to the
paedophile and the terrorist also protect the political dissident and the
whistle-blower. The encryption that impedes government surveillance of its
citizens is also vital to the global banking system - an interesting area
where corporate and state interests are in direct opposition.

[via Ethan Zuckerman's bookmarks: http://del.icio.us/ethanz]
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