In the latest issue of the World Policy Journal, I write about the absurd “terrorism” trial of Ethiopia’s “Zone 9” bloggers and point out that the crackdown in Ethiopia against online speech is part of a disturbing global trend.
Governments are fighting back against the Internet’s empowering, decentralized character. They are upgrading their own institutional, military, and technical power. They are passing laws criminalizing various forms of online speech and enforcing those laws with police, security, and intelligence forces. Law enforcement and intelligence services of democracies, as well as dictatorships, are pushing their powers of surveillance to the limit. Many governments are also finding new and creative ways to control through their legal and technical powers what people can and especially cannot do on the Internet and with mobile devices.
The piece concludes:
As we think globally, those of us lucky enough to live in democracies must not forget that Internet freedom starts at home. If we cannot figure out how to constrain government and corporate power over digital networks people depend on, prepare to join our Ethiopian friends in Zone 9.
Click here to read the whole thing.
Consent of the Networked 