See Also:
Meet Elio Di Rupo: The Unlikely Man With The Crazy History Now In Charge Of Belgium
British Eurosceptism Might Just Ruin The EU Treaty Talks For Everyone
WHOA: Europe’s ‘New Fiscal Compact’ Could Be Adopted Almost Immediately
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The European Union should help teach bloggers living under oppressive regimes how to communicate freely and avoid detection, and develop technology to help them, the bloc’s digital affairs commissioner said Friday.
Speaking at an online free speech conference, Neelie Kroes said digital dissidents need tools that are “simple and ready-made.”
“I want the EU to help develop and distribute these tools,” she said.
Governments, companies and civil liberties groups are meeting at the Freedom Online conference at the Dutch Foreign Ministry in hopes of creating a coalition of like-minded groups to promote Internet freedoms.
Bloggers and users of social networks played a key role in fomenting the revolutions of the “Arab Spring” — and the risks they took.
In an emotional speech, Syrian blogger Amjad Baiazy said his country’s surveillance system was built by Western countries. He said he was arrested and tortured in May for expressing his opinion online, and a friend was arrested as recently as this week for a Facebook posting. He called on governments to fight for “security of citizens, not corporations or governments.”
“Sometimes there’s a big gap between the security of governments and the security of citizens,” he said.
On Thursday U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened the conference with a call for companies not to sell surveillance tools to authoritarian regimes.
Dutch member of parliament Marietje Schaake echoed Clinton’s call, saying that companies “with a reputation to lose” — such as Google, one of the conference’s sponsors — are more likely to heed it.
However, she said less well-known companies may need incentives or laws to restrain them.
She pointed out the Intelligence Support Systems conference being held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, also this week, is essentially a marketplace for governments and others interested in surveillance technology.
“We need to get ahead of the curve,” she said. “Some governments curb freedom before the Internet fully arrives there.”
Schaake also slammed the U.S. for its proposed “Stop Online Piracy Act,” which would require U.S. telecommunications companies to block access to foreign-based websites for infringing on U.S. copyrights.
This will “give great incentives to governments like China to do the same,” she said, blocking political speech they don’t approve and arguing that their censorship practices are no different than those in the West.
Among other actions, the Dutch government pledged euro1 million ($1.3 million) to develop “mesh” networks — networks that use mobile phones to create a backup system to disseminate information when a government tries to block the Internet or social networks. He named Syria, Iran and Zimbabwe as target countries.
Article source: SAI http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/G6gZh2HbSpo/blogs-dictatorships-2011-12